Hopkins, Clyde

ORAL HISTORY OF CLYDE HOPKINS
Interviewed by Keith McDaniel
December 10, 2011
MR. MCDANIEL: My name is Keith McDaniel and today is December the 10th, 2011 and I am at the home of Mr. Clyde Hopkins here in Oak Ridge. And Mr. Hopkins it's nice to meet you today. MR. HOPKINS: Good to meet you. MR. MCDANIEL: Thank you for taking time to talk with us a little bit. This is a beautiful home you've got here, nice section of Oak Ridge and so we’re real comfortable. Tell me, tell me where you were born and raised and let’s kind of go back to the beginning -- MR. HOPKINS: Okay. MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me about your family. MR. HOPKINS: Okay now I was born down in West Tennessee in a little town called Brownsville. It's in Haywood County, about fifty miles north of Memphis. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. MR. HOPKINS: I lived out of the city of Brownsville on a farm. And we did farming when I grew up. MR. MCDANIEL: What year were you born? MR. HOPKINS: I was born in 1929. MR. MCDANIEL: 1929, you were a depression baby weren't you? MR. HOPKINS: I was. MR. MCDANIEL: So you lived on a farm, you grew up on a farm. You have brothers and sisters? MR. HOPKINS: Have one brother, or had one brother. He is dead now. MR. MCDANIEL: And your father was, you were a farming family? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, well we were a farming family and we had a country grocery store, which lost money, and my father was also commissioner of roads in the county. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? Okay so that sounds like your typical rural county. MR. HOPKINS: Yup, it was rural. There was no industry of any kind in our county when I grew up. None -- MR. MCDANIEL: None? Well what about the school system. You went to school there I imagine? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah I went to school out close to where I lived in grade school and then I went to high school in Brownsville. We just had one high school in the county. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: And I went to high school there. I think there was about three hundred and fifty kids in that high school -- MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: --even though we only had one. MR. MCDANIEL: Well what do you remember about, like I said, your first ten years of life was during the Depression. What can you remember? MR. HOPKINS: Well I can remember an awful lot. People were having a hard time getting any money for anything. I can remember the WPA -- MR. MCDANIEL: Really? MR. HOPKINS: -- and people clearing off the right-of-way on the road and doing all kinds of things on the WPA program. Those who didn't own farms then and didn’t have another way of making money, they just couldn't make it. They had to go on WPA. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, Right. I mean it was just tough for everybody. My father worked on the WPA as a matter of fact. He was born in 1918 so he was old enough to work by the time the Depression came around. MR. HOPKINS: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: So you went to high school there. And then you went onto college? Tell me how did that happen. MR. HOPKINS: Well I went to college in Jackson, Tennessee. It’s a Baptist college called Union University. And I went there because I got a football scholarship to play there. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: And I played the first two years, then I decided if I was going to really learn anything, I better go do something else. And I had decided by then, I wanted to get a lot of accounting courses and major in accounting. So I went to Bowling Green, Kentucky, for my last two years and graduated from Bowling Green, Kentucky, with a business degree majoring in accounting. MR. MCDANIEL: And what year was that that you graduated? MR. HOPKINS: I graduated in 1951. MR. MCDANIEL: 1951. Okay. So you played football? What position did you play? MR. HOPKINS: Guard in college and tackle in high school. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? Well I mean you don't look like a football player. MR. HOPKINS: I was a little heavier then. MR. MCDANIEL: You must have been pretty tough. MR. HOPKINS: When you get older everything goes away, including your muscle with everything else. I'm eighty two years old now -- MR. MCDANIEL: Oh my. MR. HOPKINS: So I don't have any muscle left but back then I had a lot from working on the farm and building bridges for the county and that kind of stuff. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh I'm sure. MR. HOPKINS: I was in good shape then. MR. MCDANIEL: I'm sure. Well so you graduated from Bowling Green in accounting, right? MR. HOPKINS: Right. Went to Louisville, Kentucky, to work for a CPA firm. This was during the Korean War and I went up there knowing I was going to get drafted so I worked there about nine months and here came the draft man. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: And said I had to go down to Memphis, which was the closest to where I grew up. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: For my Army physical. MR. MCDANIEL: All right, okay. MR. HOPKINS: Well strangely enough, when we came back to Brownsville on the bus that day from Memphis with a bunch of other guys. The person who headed up the draft board or the process of getting people to go into the service happened to be at the bus and he was talking to my dad and he said you know they're hiring people up in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. And if your son got a job in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, I might be able to get him a deferment. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: The next day we were in the car heading to Oak Ridge. Later, I learned I flunked the physical. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: I had had an asthma attack the night before the physical.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh my goodness. MR. HOPKINS: But by then I'd come to Oak Ridge for an interview the day after I'd had my physical and got hired that day. MR. MCDANIEL: Did you really? MR. HOPKINS: So I decided I believe I'll move from Louisville down here. MR. MCDANIEL: My goodness MR. HOPKINS: So that started it all. MR. MCDANIEL: So what year was that ‘52? MR. HOPKINS: That was ’52. MR. MCDANIEL: ‘52. MR. HOPKINS: March ‘52. MR. MCDANIEL: March of ‘52. MR. HOPKINS: Came to work here. MR. MCDANIEL: And you were single, at the time? Were you single? MR. HOPKINS: No, my wonderful wife and I were married in the last two years of college. So she got a job in Louisville too and then she came down when I interviewed here and she went and interviewed and she got a job. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: So we both started in March 10, 1952. MR. MCDANIEL: Now who was that for? Was that for Union Carbide? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah that was Union Carbide at the Y-12 plant. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, Right. So that was 1952, you and your wife came to Oak Ridge and did you have any children at the time? MR. HOPKINS: Nope, no children. MR. MCDANIEL: And so what was your job? Tell me about that. MR. HOPKINS: Well I hired in on the weekly payroll as an accounting clerk. Started from there and then worked myself into the process of doing the production scheduling for the Y-12 plant. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: The Y-12 plant was then converting to the advanced nuclear weapons. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: We were just getting started and I got hired to try to develop a scheduling system for each of the manufacturing operations in the plant so that all the parts in each weapon were available for assembly at the same time. MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly. MR. HOPKINS: So that’s what I started doing. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh okay. Now what did your wife, what did she -- MR. HOPKINS: She worked with the people in Personnel who interviewed her, they liked her and she worked as a secretary. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: Eight years. MR. MCDANIEL: I guess they got first pick didn't they, if they found somebody they liked, they were going to hold on to them probably. MR. HOPKINS: I'll get her in here and let you meet her in a little while. MR. MCDANIEL: And I guess the Personnel Building was down in the Tunnell Building. Was that at that point the Tunnell Building? MR. HOPKINS: The Personnel Office adjoined the North Portal parking lot. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh was it? MR. HOPKINS: It was a long thin building -- MR. MCDANIEL: Was it at Y-12? MR. HOPKINS: Yes, in the North Portal. MR. MCDANIEL: Now when your first came here and got your job, now where did you live? MR. HOPKINS: We lived in the apartments right behind Penny's. Those brick apartments behind Penny's on Purdue Avenue. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. MR. HOPKINS: That particular building had just opened. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: Nobody lived in it and we were the first occupants. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: 216 North Purdue. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? I wondered when those were built. I figured they were built in the 50's. Something like that. MR. HOPKINS: Right, so we lived there for six years. MR. MCDANIEL: Really. Okay. MR. HOPKINS: And let’s see, maybe not quite six years. I think it was in 1958 we rented an East Village house because we were going to have our first child. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really? Okay. So your wife worked until the baby came. MR. HOPKINS: Yes, she hasn't worked since because we wanted her to stay home with our children. She has been a wonderful mother and wife. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. At least she hasn't been on somebody’s payroll. I understand; I've got a wife. We've got to be careful about that one, how we say those things. MR. HOPKINS: Yeah we do. MR. MCDANIEL: Don't we? MR. HOPKINS: Well after being married to her 62 years, I probably have more flexibility. MR. MCDANIEL: That is true, that is true. So -- so let’s talk about that then we'll go back to your job. So you moved into an East Village House.
MR. HOPKINS: East Village and we lived there until the property started being sold by the government. Sold off I think it was '58 or nine. Somewhere in there. Late ’50’s anyway. And we bought a lot in the western end of Oak Ridge. [Break in Audio] MR. HOPKINS: And built our first house. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: Yes. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. MR. HOPKINS: And we lived there from 1960 until 1972. MR. MCDANIEL: '72 Okay. MR. HOPKINS: I worked in Y-12 for eighteen years. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: Then I got transferred to Central Accounting. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: To head up Central Accounting and it was located in K-25. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? Central Accounting was part of Union Carbide because Union Carbide was running all four plants- three in Oak Ridge and one in Paducah, Kentucky. MR. HOPKINS: So I stayed in Central Accounting for exactly two years. Then I got transferred to the Paducah plant as a Plant Manager. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: Yes. MR. MCDANIEL: Well my goodness. MR. HOPKINS: We enjoyed that transfer so much. MR. MCDANIEL: Hold on I think we have an issue. [Break in Audio] MR. MCDANIEL: Okay we're back. Had a little microphone issue we needed to resolve and now we're back. So all right let’s talk about before you went to Paducah. Before you went there. So you worked out at Y-12 and your first job was just an accountant? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: An accountant office. Now who did you work for, who was your boss? MR. HOPKINS: Well, I worked for Mayor Al Bissell. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: I'm sure you've heard that name. Al hired me as a matter of fact. And he was my boss for several years there. About four or five years. MR. MCDANIEL: I didn't know, was he an accountant. Is that what he did? MR. HOPKINS: Well, I think so. I'm not sure about all the things Al did, but he was also a politician. MR. MCDANIEL: He was a politician. For those of you who don't know Al Bissell was Oak Ridge's first mayor. MR. HOPKINS: First mayor and I think he was mayor for twenty-seven or twenty-eight years. Something like that. MR. MCDANIEL: Oak Ridge's mayor for a long, long time. MR. HOPKINS: A great guy. I really just enjoyed knowing him and his family. Just had a great place to work there with Al. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: Then I transferred about after four years up to the production facility. The building 9212. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that when you were scheduling doing the scheduling? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, all that time that’s what I was involved in. MR. MCDANIEL: That was about the time that Y-12 was transitioning over to, we can say it now. Over to the Weapons Secondaries I guess. MR. HOPKINS: Right. MR. MCDANIEL: So and they were producing those. MR. HOPKINS: Producing Secondaries. MR. MCDANIEL: Secondaries for the nuclear weapons stock pile. MR. HOPKINS: Right. So I did all the scheduling, man power calculating, all that stuff for the production areas. All of them. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? For the whole plant basically? All the production areas -- MR. HOPKINS: All the production areas. MR. MCDANIEL: Well that was a big responsibility wasn't it? MR. HOPKINS: We had a lot of fun with that. MR. MCDANIEL: Did you? MR. HOPKINS: Because there was something in those days when the country was still doing weapons testing out west. Air testing -- MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: And they knew that it was likely that the County was going to close down above ground testing sometime in the near future. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: So they worked hard in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and Livermore, California, on all kinds of new designs and would send us drawings of the parts and they would want the parts back in eighteen days. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: So we worked around the clock for several years there on what we called eighteen day turn around. MR. MCDANIEL: Eighteen day turn around. You know the problem with that is that is those guys were going out telling everybody we can do anything. MR. HOPKINS: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: They said well you just tell us what you want. You want it tomorrow, we can do it. They wouldn't say no to anybody would they? MR. HOPKINS: No, they wouldn't. MR. MCDANIEL: But so who did you work for. Who was your manager or your supervisor? MR. HOPKINS: I worked for a fellow named John Harding who reported then to Jack Case who was a Division Director. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. HOPKINS: So those were the two guys I had as a supervisor there. MR. MCDANIEL: Now during that time, how many people were working at Y-12? MR. HOPKINS: Oh about 5,000. MR. MCDANIEL: That what, and how many of those were in production? MR. HOPKINS: Oh, I'd say 3,500 or something like that. 3,000 or 3,500. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. HOPKINS: I've forgotten all those numbers by now. Anyway it was a great place to work. Then we got a new plant manager in Y-12 whose name was Bob Jordan. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. MR. HOPKINS: And Mr. Jordan was unhappy with the accounting process in Y-12. And they asked me to come down and work in the Accounting Department. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really? MR. HOPKINS: The Y-12 Accounting Department, not K-25, but Y-12. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: So I went down and worked that project for about two years.
MR. MCDANIEL: --straightened them out? MR. HOPKINS: With the help of couple other guys we put in a new cost accounting system for all the manufacturing operations. Did that for two year and that was just before I got transferred to K-25 -- MR. MCDANIEL: Right MR. HOPKINS: To be manger of the accounting for the company. MR. MCDANIEL: Now this was before computers wasn't it? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah we used Marchant calculators. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: -and Freedman. MR. MCDANIEL: So you did that at Y-12 and then you went to Central Accounting. MR. HOPKINS: Sometime in there I think a couple years before I went to Central Accounting, the organization was changed and I was assigned the responsibility, not only for production scheduling, but for all the product engineering. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really. MR. HOPKINS: Relating to the design lab in California and New Mexico. So that’s why I was involved in those eighteen day turn around. MR. MCDANIEL: Well tell me a little bit, you didn't have a technical background but you had an accounting and business management background and I guess that’s what they needed -- MR. HOPKINS: -to help many other manufacturing supervisors in assuring they were working on the right parts at the right time. [Break in Audio] MR. HOPKINS: So we could assemble them into Secondaries. MR. MCDANIEL: And you did it for what you were getting paid to do. MR. HOPKINS: That’s right. MR. MCDANIEL: You know so make sure you weren't spending a lot more than what you were getting paid to do I suppose. MR. HOPKINS: It was a good task. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, I bet it was. Now did you have, when you were doing that did you have people that worked for you? MR. HOPKINS: Oh yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: A staff of people that-- MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, I had a staff of people. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay we were talking about you being in charge of all the production, scheduling, managing Product Engineering all the time. MR. HOPKINS: Right. MR. MCDANIEL: and then you went to, then you went to K-25. You moved out there for... MR. HOPKINS: Manager of Central Accounting. MR. MCDANIEL: Central Accounting. Now what did you do there? MR. HOPKINS: Well, I was the Manager; the President of the company, then who was Roger Hibbs, was not happy with their and he sent me down to do several specific things, which I was able to accomplish. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. HOPKINS: So, I worked there two years and then got transferred to Paducah. MR. MCDANIEL: Well, tell me about that. So, you got transferred to Paducah as the Plant Manager. MR. HOPKINS: As the Plant Manager. MR. MCDANIEL: For Union Carbide, because Paducah was kind of part of the whole contract. MR. HOPKINS: The whole operation here in Oak Ridge plus Paducah, the Union Carbide contract. MR. MCDANIEL: So, when you went to Paducah tell me about, and what year was that? MR. HOPKINS: That was 1972. MR. MCDANIEL: 1972 and you went to Paducah, and they were basically operating an enriching facility, like K-25. MR. HOPKINS: Like K-25, that right. MR. MCDANIEL: Now, how big was it compared to the K-25 site? MR. HOPKINS: Paducah was operating with about 1,800 people when I went there. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh. Okay. MR. HOPKINS: They were just getting started with an Equipment Cascade Improvement and Upgrading Program. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really. MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, so I went there just about the time that was getting underway. MR. MCDANIEL: And that was that big 1.5 billion dollar Cascade Improvement Program. MR. HOPKINS: And we spent about almost half a billion in Paducah upgrading the production facilities. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: And I am happy that the plant is still running. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, there you go, there you go. So you went out there and had about 1,800 people working there and so how long -- MR. HOPKINS: Well, to accommodate the Cascade Improvement Program, we went up to about 2,500 people. What we did in Paducah, different from what we did from Oak Ridge and Portsmouth, is rather than hiring experienced craftsmen to come in to be welders and electricians and pipe fitters, etc.; we hired people off the farms. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? MR. HOPKINS: And brought them in and trained them to do those things. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. HOPKINS: And had great success with that. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: Sure did. MR. MCDANIEL: Well that's one thing. You hire people that don’t know anything and you teach them, you raise them up the way you want them. MR. HOPKINS: That’s right and they are hardworking people and we used to make comparisons in how long it took us to do identical jobs at the three sites. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: Compared to the other two sites. And I had prepared everybody for the competition, and were we going to win this thing? We did and it wasn't even close. MR. MCDANIEL: Was it not? Because you had a little inside knowledge about Oak Ridge, didn't you? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, I did, but it was mostly the people’s willingness to work very hard.
MR. MCDANIEL: You kind of knew what they were doing, and how they did things. So good. So, how long were you at Paducah? MR. HOPKINS: Six years to the day. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? Okay. MR. HOPKINS: And then I got transferred back, still under Carbide to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Herman Postma was the Director and I was his Deputy. They called me Executive Director. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: I just worked over there, let’s see, through '78 to '81. Then they decided they were going to put all the gaseous diffusion plants under one operation. Put them together and I got made Vice President of Union Carbide to do that. And shortly after, I got made Vice President of Union Carbide. We picked up the Portsmouth plant that was being operated by Goodyear Corporation. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: So, I had that job then for about three years or something like that. MR. MCDANIEL: I'll tell you, you just rose up from the ranks from being a lowly-- MR. HOPKINS: -- A little bit at a time MR. MCDANIEL: --accountant you know right out of college didn't you? MR. HOPKINS: I was kind of lucky. MR. MCDANIEL: I'm sure there is more than luck involved there. MR. HOPKINS: When we went to the new contract with Martin Marietta. We assumed that most of us at the top would get run off but they kept the top twenty six people. MR. MCDANIEL: Did they really? MR. HOPKINS: And I became Senior Vice President for them, the second in command. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh did you? And what year -- MR. HOPKINS: In charge of all production. We had DOE contracts. MR. MCDANIEL: In charge of all production for everywhere. Now where, what year was that they came in? MR. HOPKINS: 1984. MR. MCDANIEL: '84 that’s what I was thinking. And a lot of changes happened in that mid-eighties. Martin Marietta took over, Joe LaGrone came to town. MR. HOPKINS: Joe came to town. MR. MCDANIEL: And the whole environmental issue kind of look of at that point wasn't it? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah and we got a new admiral running the Department of Energy in Washington who believed we ought to do things a lot differently. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh I bet that was. I interview a gentleman yesterday who said he retired in '93. He said from '83 to '93 were the toughest ten years he ever worked. So I’m sure after you'd been doing something a certain way for a certain amount of time you know it's kind of hard to -- MR. HOPKINS: You know Martin Marietta really didn't bring in that many people. I think they may have brought in twenty, twenty five people. Also, including the President. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. MR. HOPKINS: I reported the President and ORNL reported to the President. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: But there really wasn't all that much difference and they didn't know much about our business when they came in and you wouldn't expect them to. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: They hadn't had any exposure to something like this. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure exactly. MR. HOPKINS: So we helped them all get educated and things went smoothly, very smoothly. And the Martin Corporation then decided to take the President they brought here, back to headquarters and that’s when I moved up into the top spot. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: That was late '87 or early '88. MR. MCDANIEL: And that was, and what was that job again? MR. HOPKINS: President of the Martin Marietta Energy Group. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh was that right? So wow, that was and the Martin Marietta Energy Group was doing Oak Ridge-- MR. HOPKINS: Oak Ridge, Portsmouth, Paducah, a plant in Florida and a small operation in California. MR. MCDANIEL: Now, who was doing Paducah at this point? MR. HOPKINS: And Paducah-- MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, Paducah was considered part of Oak Ridge. So I bet you had to travel a lot? MR. HOPKINS: All the time. MR. MCDANIEL: Did you really? All the time. MR. HOPKINS: On the road all the time. MR. MCDANIEL: Well, my goodness. MR. HOPKINS: A lot of ground to cover. But I enjoyed every day of it. I didn't have many bad days in my 43 years. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? MR. HOPKINS: 43 years plus. MR. MCDANIEL: And then when did you retire? MR. HOPKINS: I retired October 1st, '95. Gave them 43 years of service. MR. MCDANIEL: 43 years’ service. Well let’s go back. Tell me something about through your whole 43 years, what were some of the, the big moments. Maybe some of the big challenges that you had to face. MR. HOPKINS: Well, I think the biggest challenge we had to face was getting those people in off the farm and getting them proper training to be excellent mechanics of all kinds during the Cascade Improvement and Upgrading Programs. MR. MCDANIEL: In Paducah. MR. HOPKINS: In Paducah. That was a real challenge. It wasn't as much a challenge in terms of being able to teach them to do the work. But to teach them to do it safely. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: And we had a lot of problems with lost time accidents, what we called then lost time injuries. You get hurt enough that you can't come to work the next day-- MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: -- Call it a lost time injury. So we had to do a lot more safety training for those people, but one of my lowest times was when an employee got electrocuted. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: In Paducah. And I felt so badly about that because when I went there and got a little bit acquainted with what was going on and saw the possibilities of having real safety problems. I decided I was going to talk to all 1,800 people in the plant about safety and I did. MR. MCDANIEL: Individually? MR. HOPKINS: Well, in groups of about forty at a time. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: Had little groups so they would feel comfortable in asking questions and so on. And I kind of had a premonition then that we were going to something bad, and I kept telling them- you know you guys get so much exposure here you just have to make one little error and somebody will be dead. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: And low and behold it happened. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: Worst or lowest spot in my whole career. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh I'm sure, I'm sure. Now whose idea was it, instead of bringing in the trained people, to bring in untrained and train them yourselves. Was that yours? MR. HOPKINS: No, the manager preceding me in Paducah had begun to plan for that -- MR. MCDANIEL: Oh had they? MR. HOPKINS: --before I got there. But I agreed with it whole heartedly. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. MR. HOPKINS: Just think of what we did for the community. All these people learned something different. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh I'm sure. MR. HOPKINS: Learned a trade. MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly, exactly. Well it’s kind of like when Oak Ridge first started. You know they brought in a lot of the locals to work. You know just about anyone who wanted to work at Oak Ridge could get a job, you know during the project I guess. MR. HOPKINS: Absolutely. MR. MCDANIEL: So anyway. That was a big challenge. What were some of your others? MR. HOPKINS: Well-- MR. MCDANIEL: Challenges or moments. MR. HOPKINS: Think here just a second. I guess really getting the Cascade Equipment Program work we had done in Paducah all done, on time and at a lower cost than the other Gaseous Diffusion sites. It was what made me as proud as any moment I've had in my whole work career. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah. And as I said earlier, I haven't had many “down” days except that one when an employee got electrocuted. MR. MCDANIEL: But I'm sure you've had some challenges. I'm not trying to dig into, you know-- MR. HOPKINS: Yeah. Well every new job was a challenge. When I transferred, not having a technical background. When I transferred anywhere to another job, I felt like a lost dog in tall weeds, for about three months. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh I'm sure, you had to learn. You had to learn it and how it was done. MR. HOPKINS: Get a speaking acquaintance for what was going on in the plant. MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly. MR. HOPKINS: Interesting side bit here. I was sitting in my office one day in Paducah, about ten o'clock in the morning and I get this call from the Personnel people that a visitor has come in. And he said he was the Vice President of the United States.
MR. MCDANIEL: That’s all right. MR. HOPKINS: Anyway, he was the Vice President Dan Quayle, and gosh, I saw him on TV a couple nights ago. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. MR. HOPKINS: But they said he's here to see you. MR. MCDANIEL: The Vice President of the United States MR. HOPKINS: Is here to see you. I thought they were pulling my leg. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, of course. MR. HOPKINS: I didn't believe that at all. And sure enough they escorted him to my office and there was the live Vice President. MR. MCDANIEL: What year was that? MR. HOPKINS: That was about 1974, I guess. MR. HOPKINS: Don Quayle. I don't know why I couldn't quickly come up with his name. That’s what happens to you when you become 82 years old. The old memory fades a little. MR. MCDANIEL: So, he just walked in and wanted to see you? MR. HOPKINS: He walked in and said he was just interested in seeing this plant. He didn't have anybody with him. He was by himself. He had driven himself out to the plant; I don't know what he was doing in Paducah. MR. MCDANIEL: I don't know what Secret Service, what that says about the Secret Service. MR. HOPKINS: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: Maybe you go ahead Mr. Vice President. Just go by yourself you'll be fine. MR. HOPKINS: He came in and we sat down and we chatted about the plant and its history for an hour, maybe two hours. Very interesting conversation. Went back to the cafeteria and had lunch with me and greeted a lot of people. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: And he was a bright guy. I don't care what the media said about him. He was a bright guy. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. MR. HOPKINS: And we had lunch and then I gave him a tour around the plant and then he went away and I never heard another word from him one way or another. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? That’s amazing. MR. HOPKINS: That’s the most unusual thing I've had happen I think. MR. MCDANIEL: Did you have your picture made with him? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: I'm sure you did. MR. HOPKINS: I've got pictures made with most of them. MR. MCDANIEL: Otherwise people wouldn't have believed you? MR. HOPKINS: No. And the people in the cafeteria couldn't believe he showed up. MR. MCDANIEL: I bet. MR. HOPKINS: For lunch. They recognized him of course he was popular or unpopular as the case might be. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, that’s true. Well, I'm sure like you said that really benefited the community because that was a rural area. MR. HOPKINS: It is. MR. MCDANIEL: You know Paducah is a little city, but mostly around it is-- MR. HOPKINS: But it’s a great city to live in. We enjoyed every day of it. MR. MCDANIEL: Did you? MR. HOPKINS: Just as much as we enjoyed living here. It’s been a good run for us. MR. MCDANIEL: I'll take a personal note here and tell my Paducah story. Back years ago, forgive me listeners, I'm indulging myself. But back years ago, when I was first starting out. I was doing all kinds of graphic design and marketing. And this is before I got into to film work and video. And a friend of mine called and said my sisters got a friend in Paducah, right outside of Paducah, who started this little company and it needs some marketing help. And he can't pay very much, but he'd be willing to pay a little bit. So I go to Paducah, meet this guy. And sure enough it's a little company. I didn't know if it was going to make any anything or not. I didn't, it was an odd, and I’ll tell you what it is in a minute. It was this odd little company. So, I designed the logo and their first brochure and took the first produce photos, and you know all those things. And I would go up and spend a couple days, a couple days a month for about six months until he kind of got to the point where you just didn't need anything else or couldn't afford me. Now, I wasn't making very much anyway. So anyway, I said, okay that was good, that was good experience and I’ve got that stuff somewhere in a file. But what it was, was this guy worked for the State of Kentucky and he was biologist, and one of his jobs was the figure out how to keep manure from ruining, I guess. You know for fertilizer and things. He says you know I think if you liquefy, if we liquefy it and if we drop it into liquid nitrogen, those little drops will turn into little spheres. And we can freeze them and keep them frozen and then just spread them out like fertilizer. He says and that, that’s this project he had. And one weekend he was thinking you know, I bet you could do that with ice cream. His company was Dippin’ Dots. MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, that’s where it came from. MR. MCDANIEL: His company was Dippin’ Dots. He's been on, I saw him on Oprah last year, a couple years ago. He had made thirty six, he had personally made thirty six million dollars last year, something like that. MR. HOPKINS: Maybe you should have stuck with him. MR. MCDANIEL: I know right, you know that’s one of those decisions. But that’s my Paducah story. Because he was right outside Paducah, that’s where his office was. So what -- MR. HOPKINS: I guess obviously the highlight of the program has to be, when I was made President of Martin Marietta Energy Group. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, well tell me about that, was that expected? MR. HOPKINS: Martin Marietta is a great company to work for. Boy I couldn't have been treated better. But after they got all these unfamiliar operations, they wanted to have somebody in the top job who had knowledge and background who would be able to communicate with them and their board of directors and perform the other requirements of the job. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: When I got that job I couldn't believe it. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? MR. HOPKINS: No, here I am, a dumb old accountant being given this job, something’s wrong. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh my goodness. Now where, so where was your office? In Oak Ridge, where you in Oak Ridge? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, it was in Oak Ridge. Martin Marietta reorganized the whole corporation and split it into seven groups based on functions, and I had one of those groups that was called the Energy Group. And all the rest of the Group Presidents, were in corporate headquarters except me. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, oh okay. MR. HOPKINS: In Bethesda, Maryland, that’s where the headquarters are. Just outside Washington. And they wanted me to move up there and I said, I told my boss whose name was Tom. I said Tom, you know I’ve lived here in Oak Ridge all this time and don’t want to move. I don't know how much more time I’m going to work.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: I had just as soon stay here. I don't want to come up there. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: And I said besides I can't do anything good up there. All the other businesses I don't know anything about. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. This is where the main work was going on, so you might as well be here. MR. HOPKINS: Might as well be here is where I need to be and they let me stay here. MR. MCDANIEL: They let you stay here. So -- MR. HOPKINS: And I should also say that Joe LaGrone was a good guy to work with. MR. MCDANIEL: Was he? Tell me about that. Tell me about Joe. MR. HOPKINS: Joe is one of the finest fellows I’ve ever known. He's, like I, is a country boy. And he worked his way up through the Department of Energy. He's energetic, enthusiastic; always tell you what he thinks. He's always on top of the table. Likes to have a good time. I really enjoyed a good relationship with him.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: And I used to meet with him weekly and we'd talk over common issues among the Plants and get his expectations of us in dealing with them. MR. MCDANIEL: And y'all would go to this little burger joint and have a burger and a beer, wouldn't you? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, we would. MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me. MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, we also made it a practice to go out about two times a month at night -- MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: --When it’s just the two of us around. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: And talk about the issues. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah. You could just be as honest as you wanted to be with him and he didn't hold it against you when it came time to hand out fees as long as you were honest with him. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: Told him what we’re going to do to fix whatever problem was. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: And I think that’s what made me successful enough for Joe to recommend me for the top job. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, the new person that came in with Martin Marietta, new President, I went with him every week. To meet with him and Joe. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I see. MR. HOPKINS: And he would get Joe a little riled up every now and then and I’d calm the waters. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really? Really? You were the peacemaker. MR. HOPKINS: I was the peacemaker. MR. MCDANIEL: And Joe thought that was a very attractive trait that you had. Wasn't it? MR. HOPKINS: But Joe is a good guy and I'm just glad to have had the opportunity to have worked with him. MR. MCDANIEL: Now, when he came in, things. I mean that was, he kind of stirred the pot a little bit. MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, he stirred it a lot. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah so tell me about that. You know-- MR. HOPKINS: Well, he didn't direct us in any unusual way; he did lots of pot stirring down in his own operation. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: But he did-- MR. MCDANIEL: -- But it affected the whole operation. MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, he did change things that were major. He put a DOE office in each of the plant sites. So up until then we didn't have a DOE office in any plant. And he put enough people into staff those. You know good people out there that we could work with. The DOE office for Y-12 was in the same building I was in. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really? MR. HOPKINS: So you just walked down the hall and talked to anybody in DOE. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: So I think that’s one of the good things that DOE did, among many others. Of course they had all the connections in Washington and they helped as much as they could help, whenever we had any kind of issue. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: But I had nothing but admiration for him. MR. MCDANIEL: Well, that’s what I was going to ask you about, what was that relations like. You know he was DOE's face in Oak Ridge I guess. MR. HOPKINS: Yes, he cut a pretty good size swath in Washington too. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? MR. HOPKINS: DOE Washington. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, yeah. MR. HOPKINS: So, he was good for the job. MR. MCDANIEL: Now, one of the big things that Joe took on was the environmental clean-up efforts. How was, talk a little about that. MR. HOPKINS: Well, Joe was personally involved in that and he dragged me along too. We would go to meet with the Governor when there were issues and there were area meetings with the environmental folks both state and federal. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: And we would go to those. He went personally, he didn't send somebody, and he went personally. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: And most of them I was with him and we stayed on the same track for what our real environmental issues where that we ought to be worried about. MR. MCDANIEL: So he, he really wanted that open honest communication. MR. HOPKINS: Absolutely. MR. MCDANIEL: He thought that was the only way you could fix things. MR. HOPKINS: That’s right. MR. MCDANIEL: Well that was, that’s and you liked that? MR. HOPKINS: I'll tell you what. I guess I initiated the first open door policy in the corporation. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, when I went to Paducah, there was a lot of friction between the Union and the management. And I think we used to have overall contracts that ran for three or four years, but wages were negotiated every year. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really? MR. HOPKINS: And I think when I went to Paducah they had struck the last five years in a row. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh dang. MR. HOPKINS: And as a matter of fact I had been there about six weeks when they had a strike. So after that, though, I put in what I call the open door policy. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. MR. HOPKINS: And all these talks that I was making to people. I would say to them if anybody in this plant feels like they're being treated in some way that's unfair, or something needs to be changed and you can't get anything done about it. I don't care what job you have, what level you’re on, my door's always open. MR. MCDANIEL: Really. MR. HOPKINS: And, boy, they walked through that door. MR. MCDANIEL: Did they? MR. HOPKINS: A lot for a few months. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. MR. HOPKINS: But it settled down and relationships improved and, we never had another strike during my time therer. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: All the years I was there we worked peacefully with the union. MR. MCDANIEL: I guess that’s just, they kind of it was the attitude of you know whether these people really care? MR. HOPKINS: Right. MR. MCDANIEL: They care, they care about us and that goes a long way just to have that kind of feeling. MR. HOPKINS: And I made it a point to walk through some part of the plant every week. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? MR. HOPKINS: Big part of it and to stop and talk to people on the machines or whatever they were doing. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: Make the acquaintance. Then I did my very best to remember it for the next time and I got to where I knew about half the people in that plant by name. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh. MR. HOPKINS: Now I can't remember my own name. MR. MCDANIEL: Well that happens, that happens to us doesn't it? MR. HOPKINS: Start to deteriorate. MR. MCDANIEL: Well when I, I interviewed Joe a couple months ago and Joe said you need to talk to Clyde Hopkins, that’s how I knew y'all went to that burger joint. MR. HOPKINS: Oh okay. MR. MCDANIEL: Joe said, “Yeah, I'd take Clyde and we'd go over to Knoxville and have a burger and a Budweiser”. MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, solved a lot of problems that way. MR. MCDANIEL: Solved a lot of problems. MR. HOPKINS: But it’s been a good run for him and for us. MR. MCDANIEL: So. MR. HOPKINS: I've had a good wife. She has put up with a lot, especially my travels. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. HOPKINS: We sold a lot of the enriched uranium to power plants in Japan. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: We used to have to go over there every year or two. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh did you? MR. HOPKINS: Gosh, it was an awful trip. It lasted three weeks and we had to go to every nuclear power facility that they had over there. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? MR. HOPKINS: Which was at that time, I think twelve different power companies. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: On the four islands and we had to travel to every one of those places. MR. MCDANIEL: Wore you out didn't it? MR. HOPKINS: Took three weeks and of course they liked to party, you had to go out and eat dinner every night. When I got home, it took me about a week to get over it all. MR. MCDANIEL: But that was a big, Japan was big customer for the enriched uranium. MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, I think it was about four hundred million dollars a year. MR. MCDANIEL: Was it? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: Now how long did that last? And about what time frame was that? MR. HOPKINS: Well let’s see that was, that was in the late '80's. Middle or late '80s and beyond. I don't really remember how far it went. But the United States Enrichment Corporation is still selling to Japan. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: The Japanese like to come here and visit too. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. MR. HOPKINS: So, Ewin Kizer, who worked for Joe, and I and our wives decided we had about twenty, twenty-five of them here one time. They like to go to your house so we brought them here in these rooms we are now sitting in and we had a dining table in there and we set up another dining table in here. And we decided we were going to fix filets for them because they like steak and Jack Daniels, of course. Right. MR. MCDANIEL: Steak and Jack Daniels. MR. HOPKINS: Those guys came in this house and they said can we look around and I said sure. They were all over. They went in the basement; they went up in the attic, upstairs looking this house over. They couldn't believe it. MR. MCDANIEL: This is probably a big house for them, wasn't it? I mean -- MR. HOPKINS: They had one about like these two rooms. MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly, exactly. MR. HOPKINS: And they were sitting here at these dining tables and my wife makes these oatmeal muffins that just melt in your mouth. And I said well, I don't think the Japanese eat much bread. I never see them eat any bread when I'm over there. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: And she said I'm going to fix them anyway. And she fixed those oatmeal muffins and she passed them around one side of the table and one follow took one and when she came on around to the other side of the table he stood up and reached across the table and got him another one. MR. MCDANIEL: And got him another one. He gobbled that one down, didn't he? MR. HOPKINS: They gobbled them. They ate so many muffins, I'll tell you. I never saw the Japanese eat bread before. Now, what do they eat for dessert over there? Ewin Kiser’s wife had made all these pumpkin pies and they ate those just like they ate those muffins. Something they haven't had to eat before, but they really liked it. MR. MCDANIEL: Well my goodness. MR. HOPKINS: We put the dog on for them, as much as we could, when you got a customer that big. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh yeah, absolutely. MR. HOPKINS: The sky is the limit. MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly, exactly. Well that’s, so and they were a big customer? MR. HOPKINS: Oh yeah-- MR. MCDANIEL: Did you have other, I'm sure you had other customers like that. Was France buying any from us then? MR. HOPKINS: No, they were making their own. They started with their own gaseous diffusion plants; they got the technology from here. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: And the British and the Dutch started to make centrifuges to enrich the uranium. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: And they made their own centrifuges. The British had a gaseous diffusion plant too. MR. MCDANIEL: Did they? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, but the Dutch folks, along with British started a huge program of producing over there. It was little about this long. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah and about that big. Didn't separate much at the time but we’re economical to make and maintain.
MR. MCDANIEL: Baby centrifuges compared to what we had. MR. HOPKINS: Right. MR. MCDANIEL: Had out here. MR. HOPKINS: I don't know what’s going to happen to that program now. MR. MCDANIEL: They, now let’s talk a little bit about that because in the mid-eighties was when the K-25 was starting, was being shut down, the enrichment process. MR. HOPKINS: Yes. MR. MCDANIEL: And the centrifuge process was just coming along at that time. MR. HOPKINS: And we had very long ones being developed. MR. MCDANIEL: They were like fifty feet tall, something like that. MR. HOPKINS: I’m always worried whether I’ll get into some security stuff because I don't know what’s secure these days. MR. MCDANIEL: I don't have a security clearance, I'm not but I've talked to enough people I kind of know what’s -- MR. HOPKINS: What it is. MR. MCDANIEL: --what it is and what it’s not. I've run into one issue and I'll tell you about that after the interview but, yeah, if I know it, it’s not classified, trust me. But anyway, so tell about the time that the centrifuge program was coming along, and K-25, tell me about the shutdown of the gaseous diffusion program. MR. HOPKINS: Well, what happened was, of course, you have to produce what you sell, got to sell what your produce. And K-25 plant was the oldest plant, it was the first and even after refurbishing it, it was still not producing like the other two were. So we set the system up so the product we shipped out of here and out of Paducah was at a small enrichment level. And we shipped it up to Portsmouth to get the higher enriched uranium done up there. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: But of course for the power plants its low grade three, four, five, six percent U-235. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. HOPKINS: So both Paducah and Portsmouth did some of that over time. But Paducah when I went there, was only enriching up to about a percent and a half. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh were they? MR. HOPKINS: And then sending it up on to Portsmouth for them to finish it. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. HOPKINS: It turned out the most economical way to do it based on the equipment they had and that’s why. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? And all the highly enriched uranium we had, they had already figured out a long time ago that they had enough of that. At least they thought they had enough. MR. HOPKINS: I think it was 1963 when we quit making highly enriched uranium. Sometime about then. So it’s been a great business for the country and a lot of good people to work with. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right exactly. MR. HOPKINS: I've really enjoyed every day of working at the plants. MR. MCDANIEL: Now what about life in Oak Ridge, tell me about your life and your family’s life in Oak Ridge. MR. HOPKINS: Well, we couldn't be more pleased with everything that happened to us in Oak Ridge. Good school systems, great people to live around you, you know some of them and you don't know some of them. And it’s just a good place to live and work. You pick up certain values and I think it’s been valuable for our kids to be a part of this community as well as part of the Paducah community. It was a great place to live and work too. MR. MCDANIEL: Now how many, you have -- MR. HOPKINS: Just two girls. MR. MCDANIEL: Two daughters. MR. HOPKINS: But one’s 51, and that tells you I’m old and the other one’s 42. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: Got two grandsons. MR. MCDANIEL: Now, where are they now? MR. HOPKINS: Well, the oldest one graduated from Georgia about eighteen months ago in business and he then entered UT law school. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: He is over halfway through UT law school. MR. MCDANIEL: Your grandson? MR. HOPKINS: My grandson. There were 180 kids in the class he is number, has been number one in the class every semester. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? Now where are your daughters? MR. HOPKINS: My daughter, the one that has the sons lives in Knoxville, West Knoxville. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh okay. MR. HOPKINS: And the other, her other son is my grandson is in Memphis playing golf for the University of Memphis on scholarship. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really? MR. HOPKINS: As a matter of fact, we are going to go to Memphis either tonight or tomorrow morning early and he's going to be broadcasting the Memphis University ball game, basketball game tomorrow. He's still in school, he's just a sophomore. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. MR. HOPKINS: But he wrangled his way in to getting to announce the sports, basketball sports. He did some of that here in his high school in Webb. He has a sports show, he and two other guys have a sports show on their radio station. They have a radio station in Memphis on campus-- MR. MCDANIEL: On the campus right, right. MR. HOPKINS: And so they put on a program every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and we listen to that on the computer. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, so we're going to go down. We aren't going to the game where, we could go see him but we want to get a radio somewhere so that we can hear him. MR. MCDANIEL: Where you can, sure of course. MR. HOPKINS: I don't care anything about seeing the game but they want to listen to his broadcast. MR. MCDANIEL: Of course, of course. MR. HOPKINS: We are going to go by the Peabody and get us a room and find that station and listen to him announce that game. MR. MCDANIEL: Listen to, that’s going to be good. Now, your other daughter, where is she? MR. HOPKINS: She is in Atlanta, she's a chiropractor. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? That’s good. But so they had, they had, you liked having them here in this community? MR. HOPKINS: Yes, here and in Paducah. MR. MCDANIEL: In Paducah. MR. HOPKINS: Now, the older daughter graduated from Paducah High School and University of Tennessee. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh did she? MR. HOPKINS: The other daughter, of course graduated from Oak Ridge High School. She went on then to UT and got a teaching degree and decided she didn't want to teach so she went to Alabama and got two years master’s degree in counseling, social work, she did that for two or three years and decided that wasn't it. So she came in one day and said I’m going to chiropractic school, will you fund me? So, she had a five year program in chiropractic school. MR. MCDANIEL: There you go. MR. HOPKINS: Now, she is working. MR. MCDANIEL: Well that’s good. It takes some of us a while to figure out what we want to do. MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, yeah. Some days I’m not sure yet she knows what she wants to do. Not telling where she will end up. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: She's not married. She's still single. MR. MCDANIEL: Well, so tell me what are the, I know you talked a little bit about this but let’s just kind of wrap this up. What are the big things that you’re proudest of your career and your life? Besides family obviously. MR. HOPKINS: I was going to say family is what I’m most proud of – my wonderful wife and children. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: I think in my whole life, one thing I’m most proud of is where I grew up in the little country community which is ten miles out from Brownsville and was called Tibbs. And we might have had fifty to one hundred people in that community. But it was such a great community in which to grow up. Everybody took care of everybody else. When one family got into trouble, the other families bailed them out. We had two hurricanes go through there when I was growing up. MR. MCDANIEL: Really. MR. HOPKINS: And some of the houses got destroyed and the community would just go build them another one in a few days. Everybody got another new house. It just works that way. Or if a fellow who owned a farm and was faming for a living, got sick and couldn't work his farm, all the other farmers worked-- MR. MCDANIEL: Worked his farm. MR. HOPKINS: His farm so he got his income anyway. I remember seeing that kind of thing in action really impresses you when you get old enough to see it and appreciate it. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: I think that’s the thing I’m most thankful for is getting to grow up like that and my wife just grew up four miles down the road in a little community called Nutbush. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: Nutbush has a famous person from there. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really? MR. HOPKINS: Tina Turner. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really? MR. HOPKINS: Came from Nutbush. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: And her, my wife's Sunday school teacher. Tina was a little girl who lived on her farm in Nutbush. The farm was owned by my wife’s Sunday School teacher. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: And just down the road at the next little community called Henning is the guy that was around here and was so famous and died. Wrote “Roots”. The guy that wrote “Roots”. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, Alex Haley MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, Alex Haley is from there. MR. MCDANIEL: Really. MR. HOPKINS: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: Well my goodness. MR. HOPKINS: I won't tell the rest of this story on this thing, but there is some more to that story that I'd like to tell you. MR. MCDANIEL: Now, now you grew up, well I guess not poor, but you didn't have anything. MR. HOPKINS: No, but it didn't make any difference. MR. MCDANIEL: It didn't matter and then you end up being the President of Martin Marietta. MR. HOPKINS: I can't explain it; it wasn't supposed to happen that way. There was nothing that I had that should have caused it to happen. I don't know. MR. MCDANIEL: Well I’m mean I’m sure people, the way you progressed and you’re talking about your career earlier. You talking about how you graduated with an accounting degree and before long, it weren’t too long till you were running the whole Central Accounting Office for Oak Ridge. MR. HOPKINS: Right. MR. MCDANIEL: So-- MR. HOPKINS: I guess, I got a lot of luck being in the right place at the right time. MR. MCDANIEL: And I guess you’re probably, you’re talking about Al Bissell being a politician, I guess there are certain elements from Al that you probably learned. MR. HOPKINS: Oh, I learned a lot from Al. MR. MCDANIEL: You probably learned how to talk with people and smile at them when you were screaming inside. MR. HOPKINS: When I came into the plant, they had then what they called a nineteen day clearance, which means they could put you in the gate but you couldn't see anything classified. So they brought us out, I was broke when I came here for the interview. They said well it will take about three to four months to get you clearance. I said I can't wait, I’ve got to have some money. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: So, they put me on a nineteen day clearance, and I went down and Al knew he couldn't give me much to do, so he toured me all over that plant two or three times a week. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: He knew everybody by name from the janitors on up and got to see people and know people, that were the best thing that ever happened to me was getting to know so many people so quickly. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh I'm sure. MR. HOPKINS: Coming on the pay roll. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh I’m sure, oh I’m sure. And I guess just watching him and the way he interacted with people. You learned a lot. MR. HOPKINS: He's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. MR. MCDANIEL: My goodness. MR. HOPKINS: He trained me a lot. MR. MCDANIEL: Well good. MR. HOPKINS: It’s been a good run for me. MR. MCDANIEL: Well is there anything else you want to say, anything else you want to talk about. Now’s the time. You know, now’s the time. MR. HOPKINS: I would just simply like to close by saying what outstanding managers I’ve been privileged to work for, to learn from, and to allow me to progress in the organization. I think I had seventeen different bosses. I counted it up while I was out here in these plants working. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: And I only had one that I didn't like, respect and learn from. So one out of seventeen makes a is more than anyone could hope for. MR. MCDANIEL: That’s pretty good. MR. HOPKINS: So, I had a lot to learn from all of them. And Roger Hibbs was the guy who was President of Union Carbide operations here, and he taught me a lot. And his senior Vice President Paul Vanstrum. Great teacher, great teacher. I worked for him when I worked in Paducah. I reported to Paul. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: And its people like that along the way, starting with Bissell that just really helped me. In all these interviews, have your run across anybody who talked about the biggest character ever in Y-12 named Fred Uffelman? MR. MCDANIEL: No, tell me, tell me about him. MR. HOPKINS: Fred, he was one of a kind. MR. MCDANIEL: Was he? MR. HOPKINS: When, Bissell worked for him and I worked for Bissell. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. MR. HOPKINS: Except he sort of took over and then on paper let me work for Bissell. He sort of supervised me. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: And he, he was about the most foul-mouthed guy I’ve ever seen in my entire life. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? MR. HOPKINS: But he loved to beat up on people. Obviously when you’re new you make a lot of mistakes. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: And he, I can't say this on the-- MR. MCDANIEL: That’s okay. MR. HOPKINS: So sometimes he'd get mad at me, I’d make a mistake he'd say you stupid [mouthed words] do you ever think between the hours of 8 and 4:30. MR. MCDANIEL: Did he scare you? MR. HOPKINS: No, he made me mad, but he didn't scare me. Number of times I took my badge in and laid it on his desk, and said I quit. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? What was his name? MR. HOPKINS: Fred Uffelman. U-F-F-E-L-M-A-N. MR. MCDANIEL: Fred Uffelman. And was he like a, I guess he was like a -- MR. HOPKINS: A department head. MR. MCDANIEL: Department head. MR. HOPKINS: He was in charge of Uranium control and statistical processing control and that kind of thing. I hired into his department, that’s where Bissell worked. MR. MCDANIEL: And you just think he liked that, he liked being like that. MR. HOPKINS: Oh yeah. But he'd, on Saturday morning when I was doing the scheduling work, and even though theoretically worked for Bissell, I ended up working for this guy, call me at six o'clock every Saturday morning and say I’ll pick you up at 6:30, we're going into work. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh my goodness. For how long did that last? MR. HOPKINS: We'd stay about three o'clock that day. Every Saturday was like clockwork to me. Of course my wife was upset about that. So one weekend, we lived down at the apartment and the phone was down in the living room and she took that phone off the table and moved it down on the rug and covered it up with other pillows. And when he called the next morning I didn't answer because I didn't hear it. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: So I went in on Monday and he said, “Where the hell were you over the weekend?” And I said. “I was home Fred, you didn't call”. He said, “I did call. I let that damn phone ring off the wall and you never answered it”. Well she didn't tell me till much later what she'd done. MR. MCDANIEL: That’s funny. MR. HOPKINS: But he was good for me. He hardened me for whatever life could give. That was some of the best training you could have getting started. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: Because nobody was going to treat you worse than he did. But of course, finally beyond all that crusty stuff, I could see he had a big heart. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: He really wanted to help you and help you do well. But he had a strange way of doing it. I guess I learned from that I’ll be better to go the other way. Be nice to people and encourage them to get on your team. MR. MCDANIEL: He, I've never heard of him before. MR. HOPKINS: Well he died. MR. MCDANIEL: I'm glad you shared that story. MR. HOPKINS: He was the brightest guy, one of the brightest guys I’ve ever known in my life. And he had a heart valve problem and this was back in the sixties. And they hadn't started that kind of heart surgery much. They'd been doing some at the Cleveland Clinic. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: And he went up there for surgery and replaced that valve with a pig valve. Well I think now, one of the first in the country. Came back, got into pretty good shape and then he was going to take a trip to Europe. A five week trip to Europe and when you get those things, you are supposed to take Coumadin to keep your blood thin. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. HOPKINS: Well, he decided he wasn't going to be able to check it while he was over there, so he just wasn't going to take it while he was gone. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh my goodness. MR. HOPKINS: And he didn't take it for six weeks. Came back home and in a little while, he got in bad trouble. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. MR. HOPKINS: And died from it. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh my goodness. MR. HOPKINS: Basically, ended up killing himself by not taking that medicine. MR. MCDANIEL: Wow. My goodness. MR. HOPKINS: Even on top of all that, he was an atheist. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, was he really? Oh my goodness. MR. HOPKINS: Well, he said, he was. MR. MCDANIEL: There are a lot of people who say they are, but when the rubber meets the road that might change. MR. HOPKINS: Well, I remember when he was getting ready to go to Cleveland for that surgery, he called me and said I don't believe there is a God, but in case there is one, will you send up a little prayer for me. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh my. MR. HOPKINS: All the people I’ve worked with. I've just been so fortunate. So fortunate, wouldn't change a thing in my life I don't think. Don't know of anything I'd change. MR. MCDANIEL: Well good. Thank you very much for taking time to talk to us. MR. HOPKINS: I'm sure you've heard more than you'd like to hear MR. MCDANIEL: Oh no. [END OF INTERVIEW]

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ORAL HISTORY OF CLYDE HOPKINS
Interviewed by Keith McDaniel
December 10, 2011
MR. MCDANIEL: My name is Keith McDaniel and today is December the 10th, 2011 and I am at the home of Mr. Clyde Hopkins here in Oak Ridge. And Mr. Hopkins it's nice to meet you today. MR. HOPKINS: Good to meet you. MR. MCDANIEL: Thank you for taking time to talk with us a little bit. This is a beautiful home you've got here, nice section of Oak Ridge and so we’re real comfortable. Tell me, tell me where you were born and raised and let’s kind of go back to the beginning -- MR. HOPKINS: Okay. MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me about your family. MR. HOPKINS: Okay now I was born down in West Tennessee in a little town called Brownsville. It's in Haywood County, about fifty miles north of Memphis. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. MR. HOPKINS: I lived out of the city of Brownsville on a farm. And we did farming when I grew up. MR. MCDANIEL: What year were you born? MR. HOPKINS: I was born in 1929. MR. MCDANIEL: 1929, you were a depression baby weren't you? MR. HOPKINS: I was. MR. MCDANIEL: So you lived on a farm, you grew up on a farm. You have brothers and sisters? MR. HOPKINS: Have one brother, or had one brother. He is dead now. MR. MCDANIEL: And your father was, you were a farming family? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, well we were a farming family and we had a country grocery store, which lost money, and my father was also commissioner of roads in the county. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? Okay so that sounds like your typical rural county. MR. HOPKINS: Yup, it was rural. There was no industry of any kind in our county when I grew up. None -- MR. MCDANIEL: None? Well what about the school system. You went to school there I imagine? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah I went to school out close to where I lived in grade school and then I went to high school in Brownsville. We just had one high school in the county. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: And I went to high school there. I think there was about three hundred and fifty kids in that high school -- MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: --even though we only had one. MR. MCDANIEL: Well what do you remember about, like I said, your first ten years of life was during the Depression. What can you remember? MR. HOPKINS: Well I can remember an awful lot. People were having a hard time getting any money for anything. I can remember the WPA -- MR. MCDANIEL: Really? MR. HOPKINS: -- and people clearing off the right-of-way on the road and doing all kinds of things on the WPA program. Those who didn't own farms then and didn’t have another way of making money, they just couldn't make it. They had to go on WPA. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, Right. I mean it was just tough for everybody. My father worked on the WPA as a matter of fact. He was born in 1918 so he was old enough to work by the time the Depression came around. MR. HOPKINS: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: So you went to high school there. And then you went onto college? Tell me how did that happen. MR. HOPKINS: Well I went to college in Jackson, Tennessee. It’s a Baptist college called Union University. And I went there because I got a football scholarship to play there. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: And I played the first two years, then I decided if I was going to really learn anything, I better go do something else. And I had decided by then, I wanted to get a lot of accounting courses and major in accounting. So I went to Bowling Green, Kentucky, for my last two years and graduated from Bowling Green, Kentucky, with a business degree majoring in accounting. MR. MCDANIEL: And what year was that that you graduated? MR. HOPKINS: I graduated in 1951. MR. MCDANIEL: 1951. Okay. So you played football? What position did you play? MR. HOPKINS: Guard in college and tackle in high school. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? Well I mean you don't look like a football player. MR. HOPKINS: I was a little heavier then. MR. MCDANIEL: You must have been pretty tough. MR. HOPKINS: When you get older everything goes away, including your muscle with everything else. I'm eighty two years old now -- MR. MCDANIEL: Oh my. MR. HOPKINS: So I don't have any muscle left but back then I had a lot from working on the farm and building bridges for the county and that kind of stuff. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh I'm sure. MR. HOPKINS: I was in good shape then. MR. MCDANIEL: I'm sure. Well so you graduated from Bowling Green in accounting, right? MR. HOPKINS: Right. Went to Louisville, Kentucky, to work for a CPA firm. This was during the Korean War and I went up there knowing I was going to get drafted so I worked there about nine months and here came the draft man. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: And said I had to go down to Memphis, which was the closest to where I grew up. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: For my Army physical. MR. MCDANIEL: All right, okay. MR. HOPKINS: Well strangely enough, when we came back to Brownsville on the bus that day from Memphis with a bunch of other guys. The person who headed up the draft board or the process of getting people to go into the service happened to be at the bus and he was talking to my dad and he said you know they're hiring people up in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. And if your son got a job in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, I might be able to get him a deferment. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: The next day we were in the car heading to Oak Ridge. Later, I learned I flunked the physical. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: I had had an asthma attack the night before the physical.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh my goodness. MR. HOPKINS: But by then I'd come to Oak Ridge for an interview the day after I'd had my physical and got hired that day. MR. MCDANIEL: Did you really? MR. HOPKINS: So I decided I believe I'll move from Louisville down here. MR. MCDANIEL: My goodness MR. HOPKINS: So that started it all. MR. MCDANIEL: So what year was that ‘52? MR. HOPKINS: That was ’52. MR. MCDANIEL: ‘52. MR. HOPKINS: March ‘52. MR. MCDANIEL: March of ‘52. MR. HOPKINS: Came to work here. MR. MCDANIEL: And you were single, at the time? Were you single? MR. HOPKINS: No, my wonderful wife and I were married in the last two years of college. So she got a job in Louisville too and then she came down when I interviewed here and she went and interviewed and she got a job. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: So we both started in March 10, 1952. MR. MCDANIEL: Now who was that for? Was that for Union Carbide? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah that was Union Carbide at the Y-12 plant. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, Right. So that was 1952, you and your wife came to Oak Ridge and did you have any children at the time? MR. HOPKINS: Nope, no children. MR. MCDANIEL: And so what was your job? Tell me about that. MR. HOPKINS: Well I hired in on the weekly payroll as an accounting clerk. Started from there and then worked myself into the process of doing the production scheduling for the Y-12 plant. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: The Y-12 plant was then converting to the advanced nuclear weapons. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: We were just getting started and I got hired to try to develop a scheduling system for each of the manufacturing operations in the plant so that all the parts in each weapon were available for assembly at the same time. MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly. MR. HOPKINS: So that’s what I started doing. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh okay. Now what did your wife, what did she -- MR. HOPKINS: She worked with the people in Personnel who interviewed her, they liked her and she worked as a secretary. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: Eight years. MR. MCDANIEL: I guess they got first pick didn't they, if they found somebody they liked, they were going to hold on to them probably. MR. HOPKINS: I'll get her in here and let you meet her in a little while. MR. MCDANIEL: And I guess the Personnel Building was down in the Tunnell Building. Was that at that point the Tunnell Building? MR. HOPKINS: The Personnel Office adjoined the North Portal parking lot. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh was it? MR. HOPKINS: It was a long thin building -- MR. MCDANIEL: Was it at Y-12? MR. HOPKINS: Yes, in the North Portal. MR. MCDANIEL: Now when your first came here and got your job, now where did you live? MR. HOPKINS: We lived in the apartments right behind Penny's. Those brick apartments behind Penny's on Purdue Avenue. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. MR. HOPKINS: That particular building had just opened. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: Nobody lived in it and we were the first occupants. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: 216 North Purdue. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? I wondered when those were built. I figured they were built in the 50's. Something like that. MR. HOPKINS: Right, so we lived there for six years. MR. MCDANIEL: Really. Okay. MR. HOPKINS: And let’s see, maybe not quite six years. I think it was in 1958 we rented an East Village house because we were going to have our first child. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really? Okay. So your wife worked until the baby came. MR. HOPKINS: Yes, she hasn't worked since because we wanted her to stay home with our children. She has been a wonderful mother and wife. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. At least she hasn't been on somebody’s payroll. I understand; I've got a wife. We've got to be careful about that one, how we say those things. MR. HOPKINS: Yeah we do. MR. MCDANIEL: Don't we? MR. HOPKINS: Well after being married to her 62 years, I probably have more flexibility. MR. MCDANIEL: That is true, that is true. So -- so let’s talk about that then we'll go back to your job. So you moved into an East Village House.
MR. HOPKINS: East Village and we lived there until the property started being sold by the government. Sold off I think it was '58 or nine. Somewhere in there. Late ’50’s anyway. And we bought a lot in the western end of Oak Ridge. [Break in Audio] MR. HOPKINS: And built our first house. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: Yes. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. MR. HOPKINS: And we lived there from 1960 until 1972. MR. MCDANIEL: '72 Okay. MR. HOPKINS: I worked in Y-12 for eighteen years. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: Then I got transferred to Central Accounting. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: To head up Central Accounting and it was located in K-25. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? Central Accounting was part of Union Carbide because Union Carbide was running all four plants- three in Oak Ridge and one in Paducah, Kentucky. MR. HOPKINS: So I stayed in Central Accounting for exactly two years. Then I got transferred to the Paducah plant as a Plant Manager. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: Yes. MR. MCDANIEL: Well my goodness. MR. HOPKINS: We enjoyed that transfer so much. MR. MCDANIEL: Hold on I think we have an issue. [Break in Audio] MR. MCDANIEL: Okay we're back. Had a little microphone issue we needed to resolve and now we're back. So all right let’s talk about before you went to Paducah. Before you went there. So you worked out at Y-12 and your first job was just an accountant? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: An accountant office. Now who did you work for, who was your boss? MR. HOPKINS: Well, I worked for Mayor Al Bissell. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: I'm sure you've heard that name. Al hired me as a matter of fact. And he was my boss for several years there. About four or five years. MR. MCDANIEL: I didn't know, was he an accountant. Is that what he did? MR. HOPKINS: Well, I think so. I'm not sure about all the things Al did, but he was also a politician. MR. MCDANIEL: He was a politician. For those of you who don't know Al Bissell was Oak Ridge's first mayor. MR. HOPKINS: First mayor and I think he was mayor for twenty-seven or twenty-eight years. Something like that. MR. MCDANIEL: Oak Ridge's mayor for a long, long time. MR. HOPKINS: A great guy. I really just enjoyed knowing him and his family. Just had a great place to work there with Al. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: Then I transferred about after four years up to the production facility. The building 9212. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that when you were scheduling doing the scheduling? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, all that time that’s what I was involved in. MR. MCDANIEL: That was about the time that Y-12 was transitioning over to, we can say it now. Over to the Weapons Secondaries I guess. MR. HOPKINS: Right. MR. MCDANIEL: So and they were producing those. MR. HOPKINS: Producing Secondaries. MR. MCDANIEL: Secondaries for the nuclear weapons stock pile. MR. HOPKINS: Right. So I did all the scheduling, man power calculating, all that stuff for the production areas. All of them. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? For the whole plant basically? All the production areas -- MR. HOPKINS: All the production areas. MR. MCDANIEL: Well that was a big responsibility wasn't it? MR. HOPKINS: We had a lot of fun with that. MR. MCDANIEL: Did you? MR. HOPKINS: Because there was something in those days when the country was still doing weapons testing out west. Air testing -- MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: And they knew that it was likely that the County was going to close down above ground testing sometime in the near future. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: So they worked hard in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and Livermore, California, on all kinds of new designs and would send us drawings of the parts and they would want the parts back in eighteen days. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: So we worked around the clock for several years there on what we called eighteen day turn around. MR. MCDANIEL: Eighteen day turn around. You know the problem with that is that is those guys were going out telling everybody we can do anything. MR. HOPKINS: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: They said well you just tell us what you want. You want it tomorrow, we can do it. They wouldn't say no to anybody would they? MR. HOPKINS: No, they wouldn't. MR. MCDANIEL: But so who did you work for. Who was your manager or your supervisor? MR. HOPKINS: I worked for a fellow named John Harding who reported then to Jack Case who was a Division Director. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. HOPKINS: So those were the two guys I had as a supervisor there. MR. MCDANIEL: Now during that time, how many people were working at Y-12? MR. HOPKINS: Oh about 5,000. MR. MCDANIEL: That what, and how many of those were in production? MR. HOPKINS: Oh, I'd say 3,500 or something like that. 3,000 or 3,500. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. HOPKINS: I've forgotten all those numbers by now. Anyway it was a great place to work. Then we got a new plant manager in Y-12 whose name was Bob Jordan. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. MR. HOPKINS: And Mr. Jordan was unhappy with the accounting process in Y-12. And they asked me to come down and work in the Accounting Department. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really? MR. HOPKINS: The Y-12 Accounting Department, not K-25, but Y-12. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: So I went down and worked that project for about two years.
MR. MCDANIEL: --straightened them out? MR. HOPKINS: With the help of couple other guys we put in a new cost accounting system for all the manufacturing operations. Did that for two year and that was just before I got transferred to K-25 -- MR. MCDANIEL: Right MR. HOPKINS: To be manger of the accounting for the company. MR. MCDANIEL: Now this was before computers wasn't it? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah we used Marchant calculators. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: -and Freedman. MR. MCDANIEL: So you did that at Y-12 and then you went to Central Accounting. MR. HOPKINS: Sometime in there I think a couple years before I went to Central Accounting, the organization was changed and I was assigned the responsibility, not only for production scheduling, but for all the product engineering. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really. MR. HOPKINS: Relating to the design lab in California and New Mexico. So that’s why I was involved in those eighteen day turn around. MR. MCDANIEL: Well tell me a little bit, you didn't have a technical background but you had an accounting and business management background and I guess that’s what they needed -- MR. HOPKINS: -to help many other manufacturing supervisors in assuring they were working on the right parts at the right time. [Break in Audio] MR. HOPKINS: So we could assemble them into Secondaries. MR. MCDANIEL: And you did it for what you were getting paid to do. MR. HOPKINS: That’s right. MR. MCDANIEL: You know so make sure you weren't spending a lot more than what you were getting paid to do I suppose. MR. HOPKINS: It was a good task. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, I bet it was. Now did you have, when you were doing that did you have people that worked for you? MR. HOPKINS: Oh yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: A staff of people that-- MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, I had a staff of people. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay we were talking about you being in charge of all the production, scheduling, managing Product Engineering all the time. MR. HOPKINS: Right. MR. MCDANIEL: and then you went to, then you went to K-25. You moved out there for... MR. HOPKINS: Manager of Central Accounting. MR. MCDANIEL: Central Accounting. Now what did you do there? MR. HOPKINS: Well, I was the Manager; the President of the company, then who was Roger Hibbs, was not happy with their and he sent me down to do several specific things, which I was able to accomplish. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. HOPKINS: So, I worked there two years and then got transferred to Paducah. MR. MCDANIEL: Well, tell me about that. So, you got transferred to Paducah as the Plant Manager. MR. HOPKINS: As the Plant Manager. MR. MCDANIEL: For Union Carbide, because Paducah was kind of part of the whole contract. MR. HOPKINS: The whole operation here in Oak Ridge plus Paducah, the Union Carbide contract. MR. MCDANIEL: So, when you went to Paducah tell me about, and what year was that? MR. HOPKINS: That was 1972. MR. MCDANIEL: 1972 and you went to Paducah, and they were basically operating an enriching facility, like K-25. MR. HOPKINS: Like K-25, that right. MR. MCDANIEL: Now, how big was it compared to the K-25 site? MR. HOPKINS: Paducah was operating with about 1,800 people when I went there. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh. Okay. MR. HOPKINS: They were just getting started with an Equipment Cascade Improvement and Upgrading Program. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really. MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, so I went there just about the time that was getting underway. MR. MCDANIEL: And that was that big 1.5 billion dollar Cascade Improvement Program. MR. HOPKINS: And we spent about almost half a billion in Paducah upgrading the production facilities. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: And I am happy that the plant is still running. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, there you go, there you go. So you went out there and had about 1,800 people working there and so how long -- MR. HOPKINS: Well, to accommodate the Cascade Improvement Program, we went up to about 2,500 people. What we did in Paducah, different from what we did from Oak Ridge and Portsmouth, is rather than hiring experienced craftsmen to come in to be welders and electricians and pipe fitters, etc.; we hired people off the farms. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? MR. HOPKINS: And brought them in and trained them to do those things. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. HOPKINS: And had great success with that. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: Sure did. MR. MCDANIEL: Well that's one thing. You hire people that don’t know anything and you teach them, you raise them up the way you want them. MR. HOPKINS: That’s right and they are hardworking people and we used to make comparisons in how long it took us to do identical jobs at the three sites. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: Compared to the other two sites. And I had prepared everybody for the competition, and were we going to win this thing? We did and it wasn't even close. MR. MCDANIEL: Was it not? Because you had a little inside knowledge about Oak Ridge, didn't you? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, I did, but it was mostly the people’s willingness to work very hard.
MR. MCDANIEL: You kind of knew what they were doing, and how they did things. So good. So, how long were you at Paducah? MR. HOPKINS: Six years to the day. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? Okay. MR. HOPKINS: And then I got transferred back, still under Carbide to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Herman Postma was the Director and I was his Deputy. They called me Executive Director. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: I just worked over there, let’s see, through '78 to '81. Then they decided they were going to put all the gaseous diffusion plants under one operation. Put them together and I got made Vice President of Union Carbide to do that. And shortly after, I got made Vice President of Union Carbide. We picked up the Portsmouth plant that was being operated by Goodyear Corporation. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: So, I had that job then for about three years or something like that. MR. MCDANIEL: I'll tell you, you just rose up from the ranks from being a lowly-- MR. HOPKINS: -- A little bit at a time MR. MCDANIEL: --accountant you know right out of college didn't you? MR. HOPKINS: I was kind of lucky. MR. MCDANIEL: I'm sure there is more than luck involved there. MR. HOPKINS: When we went to the new contract with Martin Marietta. We assumed that most of us at the top would get run off but they kept the top twenty six people. MR. MCDANIEL: Did they really? MR. HOPKINS: And I became Senior Vice President for them, the second in command. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh did you? And what year -- MR. HOPKINS: In charge of all production. We had DOE contracts. MR. MCDANIEL: In charge of all production for everywhere. Now where, what year was that they came in? MR. HOPKINS: 1984. MR. MCDANIEL: '84 that’s what I was thinking. And a lot of changes happened in that mid-eighties. Martin Marietta took over, Joe LaGrone came to town. MR. HOPKINS: Joe came to town. MR. MCDANIEL: And the whole environmental issue kind of look of at that point wasn't it? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah and we got a new admiral running the Department of Energy in Washington who believed we ought to do things a lot differently. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh I bet that was. I interview a gentleman yesterday who said he retired in '93. He said from '83 to '93 were the toughest ten years he ever worked. So I’m sure after you'd been doing something a certain way for a certain amount of time you know it's kind of hard to -- MR. HOPKINS: You know Martin Marietta really didn't bring in that many people. I think they may have brought in twenty, twenty five people. Also, including the President. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. MR. HOPKINS: I reported the President and ORNL reported to the President. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: But there really wasn't all that much difference and they didn't know much about our business when they came in and you wouldn't expect them to. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: They hadn't had any exposure to something like this. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure exactly. MR. HOPKINS: So we helped them all get educated and things went smoothly, very smoothly. And the Martin Corporation then decided to take the President they brought here, back to headquarters and that’s when I moved up into the top spot. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: That was late '87 or early '88. MR. MCDANIEL: And that was, and what was that job again? MR. HOPKINS: President of the Martin Marietta Energy Group. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh was that right? So wow, that was and the Martin Marietta Energy Group was doing Oak Ridge-- MR. HOPKINS: Oak Ridge, Portsmouth, Paducah, a plant in Florida and a small operation in California. MR. MCDANIEL: Now, who was doing Paducah at this point? MR. HOPKINS: And Paducah-- MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, Paducah was considered part of Oak Ridge. So I bet you had to travel a lot? MR. HOPKINS: All the time. MR. MCDANIEL: Did you really? All the time. MR. HOPKINS: On the road all the time. MR. MCDANIEL: Well, my goodness. MR. HOPKINS: A lot of ground to cover. But I enjoyed every day of it. I didn't have many bad days in my 43 years. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? MR. HOPKINS: 43 years plus. MR. MCDANIEL: And then when did you retire? MR. HOPKINS: I retired October 1st, '95. Gave them 43 years of service. MR. MCDANIEL: 43 years’ service. Well let’s go back. Tell me something about through your whole 43 years, what were some of the, the big moments. Maybe some of the big challenges that you had to face. MR. HOPKINS: Well, I think the biggest challenge we had to face was getting those people in off the farm and getting them proper training to be excellent mechanics of all kinds during the Cascade Improvement and Upgrading Programs. MR. MCDANIEL: In Paducah. MR. HOPKINS: In Paducah. That was a real challenge. It wasn't as much a challenge in terms of being able to teach them to do the work. But to teach them to do it safely. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: And we had a lot of problems with lost time accidents, what we called then lost time injuries. You get hurt enough that you can't come to work the next day-- MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: -- Call it a lost time injury. So we had to do a lot more safety training for those people, but one of my lowest times was when an employee got electrocuted. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: In Paducah. And I felt so badly about that because when I went there and got a little bit acquainted with what was going on and saw the possibilities of having real safety problems. I decided I was going to talk to all 1,800 people in the plant about safety and I did. MR. MCDANIEL: Individually? MR. HOPKINS: Well, in groups of about forty at a time. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: Had little groups so they would feel comfortable in asking questions and so on. And I kind of had a premonition then that we were going to something bad, and I kept telling them- you know you guys get so much exposure here you just have to make one little error and somebody will be dead. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: And low and behold it happened. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: Worst or lowest spot in my whole career. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh I'm sure, I'm sure. Now whose idea was it, instead of bringing in the trained people, to bring in untrained and train them yourselves. Was that yours? MR. HOPKINS: No, the manager preceding me in Paducah had begun to plan for that -- MR. MCDANIEL: Oh had they? MR. HOPKINS: --before I got there. But I agreed with it whole heartedly. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. MR. HOPKINS: Just think of what we did for the community. All these people learned something different. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh I'm sure. MR. HOPKINS: Learned a trade. MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly, exactly. Well it’s kind of like when Oak Ridge first started. You know they brought in a lot of the locals to work. You know just about anyone who wanted to work at Oak Ridge could get a job, you know during the project I guess. MR. HOPKINS: Absolutely. MR. MCDANIEL: So anyway. That was a big challenge. What were some of your others? MR. HOPKINS: Well-- MR. MCDANIEL: Challenges or moments. MR. HOPKINS: Think here just a second. I guess really getting the Cascade Equipment Program work we had done in Paducah all done, on time and at a lower cost than the other Gaseous Diffusion sites. It was what made me as proud as any moment I've had in my whole work career. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah. And as I said earlier, I haven't had many “down” days except that one when an employee got electrocuted. MR. MCDANIEL: But I'm sure you've had some challenges. I'm not trying to dig into, you know-- MR. HOPKINS: Yeah. Well every new job was a challenge. When I transferred, not having a technical background. When I transferred anywhere to another job, I felt like a lost dog in tall weeds, for about three months. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh I'm sure, you had to learn. You had to learn it and how it was done. MR. HOPKINS: Get a speaking acquaintance for what was going on in the plant. MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly. MR. HOPKINS: Interesting side bit here. I was sitting in my office one day in Paducah, about ten o'clock in the morning and I get this call from the Personnel people that a visitor has come in. And he said he was the Vice President of the United States.
MR. MCDANIEL: That’s all right. MR. HOPKINS: Anyway, he was the Vice President Dan Quayle, and gosh, I saw him on TV a couple nights ago. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. MR. HOPKINS: But they said he's here to see you. MR. MCDANIEL: The Vice President of the United States MR. HOPKINS: Is here to see you. I thought they were pulling my leg. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, of course. MR. HOPKINS: I didn't believe that at all. And sure enough they escorted him to my office and there was the live Vice President. MR. MCDANIEL: What year was that? MR. HOPKINS: That was about 1974, I guess. MR. HOPKINS: Don Quayle. I don't know why I couldn't quickly come up with his name. That’s what happens to you when you become 82 years old. The old memory fades a little. MR. MCDANIEL: So, he just walked in and wanted to see you? MR. HOPKINS: He walked in and said he was just interested in seeing this plant. He didn't have anybody with him. He was by himself. He had driven himself out to the plant; I don't know what he was doing in Paducah. MR. MCDANIEL: I don't know what Secret Service, what that says about the Secret Service. MR. HOPKINS: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: Maybe you go ahead Mr. Vice President. Just go by yourself you'll be fine. MR. HOPKINS: He came in and we sat down and we chatted about the plant and its history for an hour, maybe two hours. Very interesting conversation. Went back to the cafeteria and had lunch with me and greeted a lot of people. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: And he was a bright guy. I don't care what the media said about him. He was a bright guy. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. MR. HOPKINS: And we had lunch and then I gave him a tour around the plant and then he went away and I never heard another word from him one way or another. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? That’s amazing. MR. HOPKINS: That’s the most unusual thing I've had happen I think. MR. MCDANIEL: Did you have your picture made with him? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: I'm sure you did. MR. HOPKINS: I've got pictures made with most of them. MR. MCDANIEL: Otherwise people wouldn't have believed you? MR. HOPKINS: No. And the people in the cafeteria couldn't believe he showed up. MR. MCDANIEL: I bet. MR. HOPKINS: For lunch. They recognized him of course he was popular or unpopular as the case might be. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, that’s true. Well, I'm sure like you said that really benefited the community because that was a rural area. MR. HOPKINS: It is. MR. MCDANIEL: You know Paducah is a little city, but mostly around it is-- MR. HOPKINS: But it’s a great city to live in. We enjoyed every day of it. MR. MCDANIEL: Did you? MR. HOPKINS: Just as much as we enjoyed living here. It’s been a good run for us. MR. MCDANIEL: I'll take a personal note here and tell my Paducah story. Back years ago, forgive me listeners, I'm indulging myself. But back years ago, when I was first starting out. I was doing all kinds of graphic design and marketing. And this is before I got into to film work and video. And a friend of mine called and said my sisters got a friend in Paducah, right outside of Paducah, who started this little company and it needs some marketing help. And he can't pay very much, but he'd be willing to pay a little bit. So I go to Paducah, meet this guy. And sure enough it's a little company. I didn't know if it was going to make any anything or not. I didn't, it was an odd, and I’ll tell you what it is in a minute. It was this odd little company. So, I designed the logo and their first brochure and took the first produce photos, and you know all those things. And I would go up and spend a couple days, a couple days a month for about six months until he kind of got to the point where you just didn't need anything else or couldn't afford me. Now, I wasn't making very much anyway. So anyway, I said, okay that was good, that was good experience and I’ve got that stuff somewhere in a file. But what it was, was this guy worked for the State of Kentucky and he was biologist, and one of his jobs was the figure out how to keep manure from ruining, I guess. You know for fertilizer and things. He says you know I think if you liquefy, if we liquefy it and if we drop it into liquid nitrogen, those little drops will turn into little spheres. And we can freeze them and keep them frozen and then just spread them out like fertilizer. He says and that, that’s this project he had. And one weekend he was thinking you know, I bet you could do that with ice cream. His company was Dippin’ Dots. MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, that’s where it came from. MR. MCDANIEL: His company was Dippin’ Dots. He's been on, I saw him on Oprah last year, a couple years ago. He had made thirty six, he had personally made thirty six million dollars last year, something like that. MR. HOPKINS: Maybe you should have stuck with him. MR. MCDANIEL: I know right, you know that’s one of those decisions. But that’s my Paducah story. Because he was right outside Paducah, that’s where his office was. So what -- MR. HOPKINS: I guess obviously the highlight of the program has to be, when I was made President of Martin Marietta Energy Group. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, well tell me about that, was that expected? MR. HOPKINS: Martin Marietta is a great company to work for. Boy I couldn't have been treated better. But after they got all these unfamiliar operations, they wanted to have somebody in the top job who had knowledge and background who would be able to communicate with them and their board of directors and perform the other requirements of the job. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: When I got that job I couldn't believe it. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? MR. HOPKINS: No, here I am, a dumb old accountant being given this job, something’s wrong. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh my goodness. Now where, so where was your office? In Oak Ridge, where you in Oak Ridge? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, it was in Oak Ridge. Martin Marietta reorganized the whole corporation and split it into seven groups based on functions, and I had one of those groups that was called the Energy Group. And all the rest of the Group Presidents, were in corporate headquarters except me. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, oh okay. MR. HOPKINS: In Bethesda, Maryland, that’s where the headquarters are. Just outside Washington. And they wanted me to move up there and I said, I told my boss whose name was Tom. I said Tom, you know I’ve lived here in Oak Ridge all this time and don’t want to move. I don't know how much more time I’m going to work.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: I had just as soon stay here. I don't want to come up there. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: And I said besides I can't do anything good up there. All the other businesses I don't know anything about. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. This is where the main work was going on, so you might as well be here. MR. HOPKINS: Might as well be here is where I need to be and they let me stay here. MR. MCDANIEL: They let you stay here. So -- MR. HOPKINS: And I should also say that Joe LaGrone was a good guy to work with. MR. MCDANIEL: Was he? Tell me about that. Tell me about Joe. MR. HOPKINS: Joe is one of the finest fellows I’ve ever known. He's, like I, is a country boy. And he worked his way up through the Department of Energy. He's energetic, enthusiastic; always tell you what he thinks. He's always on top of the table. Likes to have a good time. I really enjoyed a good relationship with him.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: And I used to meet with him weekly and we'd talk over common issues among the Plants and get his expectations of us in dealing with them. MR. MCDANIEL: And y'all would go to this little burger joint and have a burger and a beer, wouldn't you? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, we would. MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me. MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, we also made it a practice to go out about two times a month at night -- MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: --When it’s just the two of us around. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: And talk about the issues. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah. You could just be as honest as you wanted to be with him and he didn't hold it against you when it came time to hand out fees as long as you were honest with him. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: Told him what we’re going to do to fix whatever problem was. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: And I think that’s what made me successful enough for Joe to recommend me for the top job. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, the new person that came in with Martin Marietta, new President, I went with him every week. To meet with him and Joe. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I see. MR. HOPKINS: And he would get Joe a little riled up every now and then and I’d calm the waters. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really? Really? You were the peacemaker. MR. HOPKINS: I was the peacemaker. MR. MCDANIEL: And Joe thought that was a very attractive trait that you had. Wasn't it? MR. HOPKINS: But Joe is a good guy and I'm just glad to have had the opportunity to have worked with him. MR. MCDANIEL: Now, when he came in, things. I mean that was, he kind of stirred the pot a little bit. MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, he stirred it a lot. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah so tell me about that. You know-- MR. HOPKINS: Well, he didn't direct us in any unusual way; he did lots of pot stirring down in his own operation. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: But he did-- MR. MCDANIEL: -- But it affected the whole operation. MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, he did change things that were major. He put a DOE office in each of the plant sites. So up until then we didn't have a DOE office in any plant. And he put enough people into staff those. You know good people out there that we could work with. The DOE office for Y-12 was in the same building I was in. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really? MR. HOPKINS: So you just walked down the hall and talked to anybody in DOE. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: So I think that’s one of the good things that DOE did, among many others. Of course they had all the connections in Washington and they helped as much as they could help, whenever we had any kind of issue. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: But I had nothing but admiration for him. MR. MCDANIEL: Well, that’s what I was going to ask you about, what was that relations like. You know he was DOE's face in Oak Ridge I guess. MR. HOPKINS: Yes, he cut a pretty good size swath in Washington too. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? MR. HOPKINS: DOE Washington. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, yeah. MR. HOPKINS: So, he was good for the job. MR. MCDANIEL: Now, one of the big things that Joe took on was the environmental clean-up efforts. How was, talk a little about that. MR. HOPKINS: Well, Joe was personally involved in that and he dragged me along too. We would go to meet with the Governor when there were issues and there were area meetings with the environmental folks both state and federal. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: And we would go to those. He went personally, he didn't send somebody, and he went personally. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: And most of them I was with him and we stayed on the same track for what our real environmental issues where that we ought to be worried about. MR. MCDANIEL: So he, he really wanted that open honest communication. MR. HOPKINS: Absolutely. MR. MCDANIEL: He thought that was the only way you could fix things. MR. HOPKINS: That’s right. MR. MCDANIEL: Well that was, that’s and you liked that? MR. HOPKINS: I'll tell you what. I guess I initiated the first open door policy in the corporation. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, when I went to Paducah, there was a lot of friction between the Union and the management. And I think we used to have overall contracts that ran for three or four years, but wages were negotiated every year. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really? MR. HOPKINS: And I think when I went to Paducah they had struck the last five years in a row. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh dang. MR. HOPKINS: And as a matter of fact I had been there about six weeks when they had a strike. So after that, though, I put in what I call the open door policy. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. MR. HOPKINS: And all these talks that I was making to people. I would say to them if anybody in this plant feels like they're being treated in some way that's unfair, or something needs to be changed and you can't get anything done about it. I don't care what job you have, what level you’re on, my door's always open. MR. MCDANIEL: Really. MR. HOPKINS: And, boy, they walked through that door. MR. MCDANIEL: Did they? MR. HOPKINS: A lot for a few months. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. MR. HOPKINS: But it settled down and relationships improved and, we never had another strike during my time therer. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: All the years I was there we worked peacefully with the union. MR. MCDANIEL: I guess that’s just, they kind of it was the attitude of you know whether these people really care? MR. HOPKINS: Right. MR. MCDANIEL: They care, they care about us and that goes a long way just to have that kind of feeling. MR. HOPKINS: And I made it a point to walk through some part of the plant every week. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? MR. HOPKINS: Big part of it and to stop and talk to people on the machines or whatever they were doing. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: Make the acquaintance. Then I did my very best to remember it for the next time and I got to where I knew about half the people in that plant by name. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh. MR. HOPKINS: Now I can't remember my own name. MR. MCDANIEL: Well that happens, that happens to us doesn't it? MR. HOPKINS: Start to deteriorate. MR. MCDANIEL: Well when I, I interviewed Joe a couple months ago and Joe said you need to talk to Clyde Hopkins, that’s how I knew y'all went to that burger joint. MR. HOPKINS: Oh okay. MR. MCDANIEL: Joe said, “Yeah, I'd take Clyde and we'd go over to Knoxville and have a burger and a Budweiser”. MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, solved a lot of problems that way. MR. MCDANIEL: Solved a lot of problems. MR. HOPKINS: But it’s been a good run for him and for us. MR. MCDANIEL: So. MR. HOPKINS: I've had a good wife. She has put up with a lot, especially my travels. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. HOPKINS: We sold a lot of the enriched uranium to power plants in Japan. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: We used to have to go over there every year or two. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh did you? MR. HOPKINS: Gosh, it was an awful trip. It lasted three weeks and we had to go to every nuclear power facility that they had over there. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? MR. HOPKINS: Which was at that time, I think twelve different power companies. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: On the four islands and we had to travel to every one of those places. MR. MCDANIEL: Wore you out didn't it? MR. HOPKINS: Took three weeks and of course they liked to party, you had to go out and eat dinner every night. When I got home, it took me about a week to get over it all. MR. MCDANIEL: But that was a big, Japan was big customer for the enriched uranium. MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, I think it was about four hundred million dollars a year. MR. MCDANIEL: Was it? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: Now how long did that last? And about what time frame was that? MR. HOPKINS: Well let’s see that was, that was in the late '80's. Middle or late '80s and beyond. I don't really remember how far it went. But the United States Enrichment Corporation is still selling to Japan. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: The Japanese like to come here and visit too. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. MR. HOPKINS: So, Ewin Kizer, who worked for Joe, and I and our wives decided we had about twenty, twenty-five of them here one time. They like to go to your house so we brought them here in these rooms we are now sitting in and we had a dining table in there and we set up another dining table in here. And we decided we were going to fix filets for them because they like steak and Jack Daniels, of course. Right. MR. MCDANIEL: Steak and Jack Daniels. MR. HOPKINS: Those guys came in this house and they said can we look around and I said sure. They were all over. They went in the basement; they went up in the attic, upstairs looking this house over. They couldn't believe it. MR. MCDANIEL: This is probably a big house for them, wasn't it? I mean -- MR. HOPKINS: They had one about like these two rooms. MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly, exactly. MR. HOPKINS: And they were sitting here at these dining tables and my wife makes these oatmeal muffins that just melt in your mouth. And I said well, I don't think the Japanese eat much bread. I never see them eat any bread when I'm over there. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: And she said I'm going to fix them anyway. And she fixed those oatmeal muffins and she passed them around one side of the table and one follow took one and when she came on around to the other side of the table he stood up and reached across the table and got him another one. MR. MCDANIEL: And got him another one. He gobbled that one down, didn't he? MR. HOPKINS: They gobbled them. They ate so many muffins, I'll tell you. I never saw the Japanese eat bread before. Now, what do they eat for dessert over there? Ewin Kiser’s wife had made all these pumpkin pies and they ate those just like they ate those muffins. Something they haven't had to eat before, but they really liked it. MR. MCDANIEL: Well my goodness. MR. HOPKINS: We put the dog on for them, as much as we could, when you got a customer that big. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh yeah, absolutely. MR. HOPKINS: The sky is the limit. MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly, exactly. Well that’s, so and they were a big customer? MR. HOPKINS: Oh yeah-- MR. MCDANIEL: Did you have other, I'm sure you had other customers like that. Was France buying any from us then? MR. HOPKINS: No, they were making their own. They started with their own gaseous diffusion plants; they got the technology from here. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: And the British and the Dutch started to make centrifuges to enrich the uranium. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: And they made their own centrifuges. The British had a gaseous diffusion plant too. MR. MCDANIEL: Did they? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, but the Dutch folks, along with British started a huge program of producing over there. It was little about this long. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah and about that big. Didn't separate much at the time but we’re economical to make and maintain.
MR. MCDANIEL: Baby centrifuges compared to what we had. MR. HOPKINS: Right. MR. MCDANIEL: Had out here. MR. HOPKINS: I don't know what’s going to happen to that program now. MR. MCDANIEL: They, now let’s talk a little bit about that because in the mid-eighties was when the K-25 was starting, was being shut down, the enrichment process. MR. HOPKINS: Yes. MR. MCDANIEL: And the centrifuge process was just coming along at that time. MR. HOPKINS: And we had very long ones being developed. MR. MCDANIEL: They were like fifty feet tall, something like that. MR. HOPKINS: I’m always worried whether I’ll get into some security stuff because I don't know what’s secure these days. MR. MCDANIEL: I don't have a security clearance, I'm not but I've talked to enough people I kind of know what’s -- MR. HOPKINS: What it is. MR. MCDANIEL: --what it is and what it’s not. I've run into one issue and I'll tell you about that after the interview but, yeah, if I know it, it’s not classified, trust me. But anyway, so tell about the time that the centrifuge program was coming along, and K-25, tell me about the shutdown of the gaseous diffusion program. MR. HOPKINS: Well, what happened was, of course, you have to produce what you sell, got to sell what your produce. And K-25 plant was the oldest plant, it was the first and even after refurbishing it, it was still not producing like the other two were. So we set the system up so the product we shipped out of here and out of Paducah was at a small enrichment level. And we shipped it up to Portsmouth to get the higher enriched uranium done up there. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: But of course for the power plants its low grade three, four, five, six percent U-235. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. HOPKINS: So both Paducah and Portsmouth did some of that over time. But Paducah when I went there, was only enriching up to about a percent and a half. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh were they? MR. HOPKINS: And then sending it up on to Portsmouth for them to finish it. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. HOPKINS: It turned out the most economical way to do it based on the equipment they had and that’s why. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? And all the highly enriched uranium we had, they had already figured out a long time ago that they had enough of that. At least they thought they had enough. MR. HOPKINS: I think it was 1963 when we quit making highly enriched uranium. Sometime about then. So it’s been a great business for the country and a lot of good people to work with. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right exactly. MR. HOPKINS: I've really enjoyed every day of working at the plants. MR. MCDANIEL: Now what about life in Oak Ridge, tell me about your life and your family’s life in Oak Ridge. MR. HOPKINS: Well, we couldn't be more pleased with everything that happened to us in Oak Ridge. Good school systems, great people to live around you, you know some of them and you don't know some of them. And it’s just a good place to live and work. You pick up certain values and I think it’s been valuable for our kids to be a part of this community as well as part of the Paducah community. It was a great place to live and work too. MR. MCDANIEL: Now how many, you have -- MR. HOPKINS: Just two girls. MR. MCDANIEL: Two daughters. MR. HOPKINS: But one’s 51, and that tells you I’m old and the other one’s 42. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: Got two grandsons. MR. MCDANIEL: Now, where are they now? MR. HOPKINS: Well, the oldest one graduated from Georgia about eighteen months ago in business and he then entered UT law school. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: He is over halfway through UT law school. MR. MCDANIEL: Your grandson? MR. HOPKINS: My grandson. There were 180 kids in the class he is number, has been number one in the class every semester. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? Now where are your daughters? MR. HOPKINS: My daughter, the one that has the sons lives in Knoxville, West Knoxville. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh okay. MR. HOPKINS: And the other, her other son is my grandson is in Memphis playing golf for the University of Memphis on scholarship. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really? MR. HOPKINS: As a matter of fact, we are going to go to Memphis either tonight or tomorrow morning early and he's going to be broadcasting the Memphis University ball game, basketball game tomorrow. He's still in school, he's just a sophomore. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. MR. HOPKINS: But he wrangled his way in to getting to announce the sports, basketball sports. He did some of that here in his high school in Webb. He has a sports show, he and two other guys have a sports show on their radio station. They have a radio station in Memphis on campus-- MR. MCDANIEL: On the campus right, right. MR. HOPKINS: And so they put on a program every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and we listen to that on the computer. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, so we're going to go down. We aren't going to the game where, we could go see him but we want to get a radio somewhere so that we can hear him. MR. MCDANIEL: Where you can, sure of course. MR. HOPKINS: I don't care anything about seeing the game but they want to listen to his broadcast. MR. MCDANIEL: Of course, of course. MR. HOPKINS: We are going to go by the Peabody and get us a room and find that station and listen to him announce that game. MR. MCDANIEL: Listen to, that’s going to be good. Now, your other daughter, where is she? MR. HOPKINS: She is in Atlanta, she's a chiropractor. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right? That’s good. But so they had, they had, you liked having them here in this community? MR. HOPKINS: Yes, here and in Paducah. MR. MCDANIEL: In Paducah. MR. HOPKINS: Now, the older daughter graduated from Paducah High School and University of Tennessee. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh did she? MR. HOPKINS: The other daughter, of course graduated from Oak Ridge High School. She went on then to UT and got a teaching degree and decided she didn't want to teach so she went to Alabama and got two years master’s degree in counseling, social work, she did that for two or three years and decided that wasn't it. So she came in one day and said I’m going to chiropractic school, will you fund me? So, she had a five year program in chiropractic school. MR. MCDANIEL: There you go. MR. HOPKINS: Now, she is working. MR. MCDANIEL: Well that’s good. It takes some of us a while to figure out what we want to do. MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, yeah. Some days I’m not sure yet she knows what she wants to do. Not telling where she will end up. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: She's not married. She's still single. MR. MCDANIEL: Well, so tell me what are the, I know you talked a little bit about this but let’s just kind of wrap this up. What are the big things that you’re proudest of your career and your life? Besides family obviously. MR. HOPKINS: I was going to say family is what I’m most proud of – my wonderful wife and children. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: I think in my whole life, one thing I’m most proud of is where I grew up in the little country community which is ten miles out from Brownsville and was called Tibbs. And we might have had fifty to one hundred people in that community. But it was such a great community in which to grow up. Everybody took care of everybody else. When one family got into trouble, the other families bailed them out. We had two hurricanes go through there when I was growing up. MR. MCDANIEL: Really. MR. HOPKINS: And some of the houses got destroyed and the community would just go build them another one in a few days. Everybody got another new house. It just works that way. Or if a fellow who owned a farm and was faming for a living, got sick and couldn't work his farm, all the other farmers worked-- MR. MCDANIEL: Worked his farm. MR. HOPKINS: His farm so he got his income anyway. I remember seeing that kind of thing in action really impresses you when you get old enough to see it and appreciate it. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: I think that’s the thing I’m most thankful for is getting to grow up like that and my wife just grew up four miles down the road in a little community called Nutbush. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: Nutbush has a famous person from there. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really? MR. HOPKINS: Tina Turner. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really? MR. HOPKINS: Came from Nutbush. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: And her, my wife's Sunday school teacher. Tina was a little girl who lived on her farm in Nutbush. The farm was owned by my wife’s Sunday School teacher. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: And just down the road at the next little community called Henning is the guy that was around here and was so famous and died. Wrote “Roots”. The guy that wrote “Roots”. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, Alex Haley MR. HOPKINS: Yeah, Alex Haley is from there. MR. MCDANIEL: Really. MR. HOPKINS: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: Well my goodness. MR. HOPKINS: I won't tell the rest of this story on this thing, but there is some more to that story that I'd like to tell you. MR. MCDANIEL: Now, now you grew up, well I guess not poor, but you didn't have anything. MR. HOPKINS: No, but it didn't make any difference. MR. MCDANIEL: It didn't matter and then you end up being the President of Martin Marietta. MR. HOPKINS: I can't explain it; it wasn't supposed to happen that way. There was nothing that I had that should have caused it to happen. I don't know. MR. MCDANIEL: Well I’m mean I’m sure people, the way you progressed and you’re talking about your career earlier. You talking about how you graduated with an accounting degree and before long, it weren’t too long till you were running the whole Central Accounting Office for Oak Ridge. MR. HOPKINS: Right. MR. MCDANIEL: So-- MR. HOPKINS: I guess, I got a lot of luck being in the right place at the right time. MR. MCDANIEL: And I guess you’re probably, you’re talking about Al Bissell being a politician, I guess there are certain elements from Al that you probably learned. MR. HOPKINS: Oh, I learned a lot from Al. MR. MCDANIEL: You probably learned how to talk with people and smile at them when you were screaming inside. MR. HOPKINS: When I came into the plant, they had then what they called a nineteen day clearance, which means they could put you in the gate but you couldn't see anything classified. So they brought us out, I was broke when I came here for the interview. They said well it will take about three to four months to get you clearance. I said I can't wait, I’ve got to have some money. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: So, they put me on a nineteen day clearance, and I went down and Al knew he couldn't give me much to do, so he toured me all over that plant two or three times a week. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: He knew everybody by name from the janitors on up and got to see people and know people, that were the best thing that ever happened to me was getting to know so many people so quickly. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh I'm sure. MR. HOPKINS: Coming on the pay roll. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh I’m sure, oh I’m sure. And I guess just watching him and the way he interacted with people. You learned a lot. MR. HOPKINS: He's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. MR. MCDANIEL: My goodness. MR. HOPKINS: He trained me a lot. MR. MCDANIEL: Well good. MR. HOPKINS: It’s been a good run for me. MR. MCDANIEL: Well is there anything else you want to say, anything else you want to talk about. Now’s the time. You know, now’s the time. MR. HOPKINS: I would just simply like to close by saying what outstanding managers I’ve been privileged to work for, to learn from, and to allow me to progress in the organization. I think I had seventeen different bosses. I counted it up while I was out here in these plants working. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: And I only had one that I didn't like, respect and learn from. So one out of seventeen makes a is more than anyone could hope for. MR. MCDANIEL: That’s pretty good. MR. HOPKINS: So, I had a lot to learn from all of them. And Roger Hibbs was the guy who was President of Union Carbide operations here, and he taught me a lot. And his senior Vice President Paul Vanstrum. Great teacher, great teacher. I worked for him when I worked in Paducah. I reported to Paul. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: And its people like that along the way, starting with Bissell that just really helped me. In all these interviews, have your run across anybody who talked about the biggest character ever in Y-12 named Fred Uffelman? MR. MCDANIEL: No, tell me, tell me about him. MR. HOPKINS: Fred, he was one of a kind. MR. MCDANIEL: Was he? MR. HOPKINS: When, Bissell worked for him and I worked for Bissell. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. MR. HOPKINS: Except he sort of took over and then on paper let me work for Bissell. He sort of supervised me. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: And he, he was about the most foul-mouthed guy I’ve ever seen in my entire life. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? MR. HOPKINS: But he loved to beat up on people. Obviously when you’re new you make a lot of mistakes. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: And he, I can't say this on the-- MR. MCDANIEL: That’s okay. MR. HOPKINS: So sometimes he'd get mad at me, I’d make a mistake he'd say you stupid [mouthed words] do you ever think between the hours of 8 and 4:30. MR. MCDANIEL: Did he scare you? MR. HOPKINS: No, he made me mad, but he didn't scare me. Number of times I took my badge in and laid it on his desk, and said I quit. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? What was his name? MR. HOPKINS: Fred Uffelman. U-F-F-E-L-M-A-N. MR. MCDANIEL: Fred Uffelman. And was he like a, I guess he was like a -- MR. HOPKINS: A department head. MR. MCDANIEL: Department head. MR. HOPKINS: He was in charge of Uranium control and statistical processing control and that kind of thing. I hired into his department, that’s where Bissell worked. MR. MCDANIEL: And you just think he liked that, he liked being like that. MR. HOPKINS: Oh yeah. But he'd, on Saturday morning when I was doing the scheduling work, and even though theoretically worked for Bissell, I ended up working for this guy, call me at six o'clock every Saturday morning and say I’ll pick you up at 6:30, we're going into work. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. HOPKINS: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh my goodness. For how long did that last? MR. HOPKINS: We'd stay about three o'clock that day. Every Saturday was like clockwork to me. Of course my wife was upset about that. So one weekend, we lived down at the apartment and the phone was down in the living room and she took that phone off the table and moved it down on the rug and covered it up with other pillows. And when he called the next morning I didn't answer because I didn't hear it. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. HOPKINS: So I went in on Monday and he said, “Where the hell were you over the weekend?” And I said. “I was home Fred, you didn't call”. He said, “I did call. I let that damn phone ring off the wall and you never answered it”. Well she didn't tell me till much later what she'd done. MR. MCDANIEL: That’s funny. MR. HOPKINS: But he was good for me. He hardened me for whatever life could give. That was some of the best training you could have getting started. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: Because nobody was going to treat you worse than he did. But of course, finally beyond all that crusty stuff, I could see he had a big heart. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: He really wanted to help you and help you do well. But he had a strange way of doing it. I guess I learned from that I’ll be better to go the other way. Be nice to people and encourage them to get on your team. MR. MCDANIEL: He, I've never heard of him before. MR. HOPKINS: Well he died. MR. MCDANIEL: I'm glad you shared that story. MR. HOPKINS: He was the brightest guy, one of the brightest guys I’ve ever known in my life. And he had a heart valve problem and this was back in the sixties. And they hadn't started that kind of heart surgery much. They'd been doing some at the Cleveland Clinic. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. HOPKINS: And he went up there for surgery and replaced that valve with a pig valve. Well I think now, one of the first in the country. Came back, got into pretty good shape and then he was going to take a trip to Europe. A five week trip to Europe and when you get those things, you are supposed to take Coumadin to keep your blood thin. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. HOPKINS: Well, he decided he wasn't going to be able to check it while he was over there, so he just wasn't going to take it while he was gone. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh my goodness. MR. HOPKINS: And he didn't take it for six weeks. Came back home and in a little while, he got in bad trouble. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. MR. HOPKINS: And died from it. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh my goodness. MR. HOPKINS: Basically, ended up killing himself by not taking that medicine. MR. MCDANIEL: Wow. My goodness. MR. HOPKINS: Even on top of all that, he was an atheist. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, was he really? Oh my goodness. MR. HOPKINS: Well, he said, he was. MR. MCDANIEL: There are a lot of people who say they are, but when the rubber meets the road that might change. MR. HOPKINS: Well, I remember when he was getting ready to go to Cleveland for that surgery, he called me and said I don't believe there is a God, but in case there is one, will you send up a little prayer for me. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh my. MR. HOPKINS: All the people I’ve worked with. I've just been so fortunate. So fortunate, wouldn't change a thing in my life I don't think. Don't know of anything I'd change. MR. MCDANIEL: Well good. Thank you very much for taking time to talk to us. MR. HOPKINS: I'm sure you've heard more than you'd like to hear MR. MCDANIEL: Oh no. [END OF INTERVIEW]